Red Paper Cranes
by Panda-chan1358
Summary: Yet another route, but something went terribly wrong. Ayano looks back to the past, when everyone smiled and paper cranes flooded Shintaro's desk. She looks at where she is standing, feeling the breeze, and her red scarf fluttering. Ayano can see the entire city above here. The weather's nice up here, too bad she has to ruin it, but it's not like she has a choice... right?
1. Chapter 1

_"C'mon! Hurry up! Remember onee-chan is bringing a stranger here!"_

_"Waah! Keep the door open!"_

_"This wouldn't take so long if you didn't bring the gerbil."_

_"Hamster! It's a hamst- waah!"_

_"I thought it was a guinea pig..."_

_"I told you it's a-"_

*Clack*

"I'm home!" Ayano walked inside her house, her short hair swaying along with her scarf.

Shintaro followed Ayano into her house, sighing, "Why am I here again?"

"Ham?"

Shintaro paused and looked downwards.

"'Ham'...?!"

First, Shintaro thought he heard a hamster, second, he now sees a hamster, third, he's stepping on a hand of a boy with a white hoodie who seems to have frozen once he was spotted.

"CRAP! Sorry!" Shintaro panicked and took his foot off of the boy's hand.

"Shintaro! Don't use that word in front of kids!" Ayano scolded.

*Creak*

They looked over to a closet which had a boy with a black hoodie and a girl with a purple hoodie in it.

...

...

...

"What are you guys doing at the entran-" Kenjirou (or Ayano's dad) paused at the sight of everyone frozen.

"Oh!" Ayaka (or Ayano's mom) appeared from behind a wall, "Welcome home! I bought some sweets if you guys want~!"

* * *

"Again..."

Shintaro was now in Ayano's room with the three children and of course Ayano.

"Why am I here again?"

"B-Because my father told-er-asked you if you would help me study so I won't fail and get held back and you said yes!"

"-Sigh- I guess..." Shintaro stared at his piece of strawberry shortcake her mother bought for the kids.

"Who are they?" he looked at the three kids who immediately averted their gazes at him in unison.

"Oi..."

"Uh...!" Ayano was worried at what would happen if he saw their red eyes.

"The boy with the hamster is Seto, my younger adopted brother, along with the boy with the black hoodie, Kano! The girl with the purple one is Kido, my younger adopted sister!"

Shintaro was starting to get a bit annoyed by their constant "avert your eyes from strangers!"

"Jeez, let's just get started okay?"

-A few minutes later-

"You got everything?" Shintaro was about to eat the strawberry when he caught Ayano looking more confused then ever.

-Stare-

Shintaro could feel someone's gaze and when he turned Kido was sitting right beside him.

_What the?! When did she get there?!_

"I'm guessing you want my strawberry?"

He tried to catch her glance but she pulled down her hood even more to cover her eyes.

_That's it...!_

He didn't like being rash but this was definitely irritating him.

He pulled Kido's hood off and actually caught her eyes.

"Try looking at me in the eye for once, okay?!"

Kido hesitated a bit before she finally looked at Shintaro is the eye.

"C-Can I have your s-strawberry?!" she whispered in a panic.

"Here," Shintaro picked up his fork with the strawberry on it and gave it to Kido.

"E-Eh...?"

He started getting more annoyed now, "What do you mean 'eh?'! Here!"

"Ah...! Thank you..." Kido murmured as she took the fork and strawberry and nibbled on it.

Shintaro sighed and patted Kido's head.

"You remind me a lot of my little sister, except for the part about asking, she just takes what she wants from me..."

"A-aren'tyougoingtocallmeamonsterandrunawayinfear?" Kido quickly said.

[Processing what Kido just said]

"Why would I call you that?"

"Becausemyeyesarered..."

[More processing]

"Like I said you remind me a lot of my little sister, she has those same red eyes."

Kido brightened up while nibbling on the strawberry.

Kano then tackled Shintaro but of course didn't knock him over.

"Then you're not afraid of us?" Kano asked with a smirk.

"No."

"Hear that, Seto? Now stop playing with your gerbil and get over here!"

"Hamster!"

"Whatever!" Kano grabbed Seto by the arm and ran back to Shintaro and clung onto his sleeve with a grin.

"I wonder..." Seto tried reading his thoughts on purpose for once and he got nothing. He still shied away though.

"Come on, how many times do I have to say it? I'm not afraid of red eyes!" Shintaro patted Seto's head.

"Hey! Pat my head too!"

Shintaro patted Kano's head.

"Heehee, you're really good with little kids, huh?" Ayano was also glad that he didn't run away or feared their red eyes.

"By the way, I'm done!"

Ayano handed over her homework to Shintaro, who grabbed it and scanned over what she done.

He then got out a red marker out of his backpack and started marking on the first few questions... which were wrong.

"W-Waah! Shintaro what are you doing?!"

"I'm helping the teacher by giving him less work..."

"Shintaro don't do that!"

Kido, Kano, and Seto laughed.

Ayano was worrying over what Shintaro was doing and sweating but she smiled at this little antic.

And Shintaro continued marking what was wrong but he was making a slight smirk.


	2. Chapter 2

"Shintaro! Today I just met a girl named Mary!"

"That's cool."

"She lives in a house hidden in a forest!"

"That's cool."

"Why don't you meet her? She's a bit shy though."

"That's cool."

Seto pouted.

"Shintaro, are you even listening?"

"..."

Shintaro looked the other way.

"You can be mean sometimes..."

"Then what do you want, me to follow you and meet Maria?"

"Mary! And yes!" Seto was tugging on Shintaro's sleeve so they could go, but of course Shintaro didn't budge.

"What happened to your hoodie?"

Shintaro noticed that Seto wasn't wearing his white hoodie anymore.

"Uh, I gave it to her..."

He sighed, "Fine, let's go."

"Yay!"

* * *

*Knock, knock, knock*

Seto knocked on the door, but no one answered.

*Knock*

"H-Hold on just a min- waah!" a girl's voice could be heard inside... along with glass shattering, a can being knocked over, along with a giant *thump*.

"M-Mary?!" Seto opened the door to see that her tea was spilled, again, a can full of cloth and sewing needles and string, and there was a giant ball of fluff on the ground.

...

"I'm guessing the giant ball of fluff is Mary?" Shintaro pointed to the giant ball of fluff.

She raised her head high enough so they could see her pouting face, "I'm not a giant ball of flu- aagh!"

Mary noticed a stranger (Shintaro) and hid her face so that she looked like a giant ball of fluff again.

"Mary, calm down! Shintaro isn't as scary as he looks!" Seto kneeled down to Mary.

_Do I look that scary?!... Then again people had told me that I had "rotten eyes"..._

She raised her head again, "R-Really?"

"Yeah! See, Shintaro isn't afraid of red eyes, okay?!"

"If I remember correctly you had a similar reaction..." Shintaro looked the other way and thought for a moment.

"N-No I didn't!" Seto blushed from embarrassment since he was supposed to look like a brave boy to Mary.

"Yeah, even though Kano told you I was safe you still shied away."

"Shintaro!"

They heard a soft giggle.

When they turned their heads back to Mary she was sitting properly and laughing.

Seto smiled then soon began to laugh.

Shintaro made a slight smirk again.

_Did I... ever smile this much?_

* * *

"And that's what happened!" Seto told his adopted siblings the story.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Shintaro said, "Were you reading my mind?!"

Seto started to sweat and looked the other way, "J-Just a little..."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Kozakura Mary," Mary bowed her head as she introduced herself to Seto's adopted siblings.

"Nice to meet you, Mary," Ayano said with a smile.

_These past two days..._ Ayano thought, _were different then the other routes... oh well, at least Shintaro has a better bond with the members..._

"Onee-chan, what's the Tanabata Festival?" Kido tugged at Ayano's sleeve.

"Tanabata is a star festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi. According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calender. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on July 7 of the Gregorian calender. The celebration is held at various days between July and August," Shintaro simply said.

"How about we all go there?" Ayano asked.

"Yeah! Shintaro you should bring you little sister too!" Seto said.

"Do I have to? Well, she's always busy with that idol schedule of hers..."

"An idol?!" Mary exclaimed.

"Then let's do it when she's free," Kido said.

"Hey, what's her name?" Kano asked.

"Momo, Kisaragi Momo," Shintaro said.

"Alright, let's do that!" Ayano cheered.


	3. Chapter 3

_Jeez, what's taking them so long?!_

Shintaro was starting to grow impatient with the girls trying on different yukatas.

"Shintaro! Look!"

Ayano uncovered the curtain to show herself in a white yukata with a red sash and it was decorated with red paper cranes all over it.

"How do I look?"

"Amazing!" Seto and Kano said simultaneously.

"It looks pretty good..." Shintaro sighed.

Ayano smiled at them.

"Now, unveiling Kido!" she said as she moved the curtains to see Kido.

Kido wore a lavender yukata with a red-violet sash that had thin white stripes and it was decorated with purple flowers on certain parts of the yukata.

"Cute!" Seto said while Shintaro nodded.

"That's pretty girly for you to wear-" Kano got punched in the face by Kido.

"Get ready for Mary!"she moved the curtains to see Mary.

Mary wore a white yukata with a pink sash and it was decorated with multiple colored flowers all over it. Her hair was tied into a ponytail with a sakura hair clip that had dangling beads.

The boys were rendered speechless by how adorable Mary looked. (Let's face it, she's adorable).

"Ta-da!" Momo moved her own curtain.

Momo wore a orange yukata with a yellow sash and it was decorated with peach blossoms on the trims. Her hair was down and a temple good luck charm hair clip was on her left side of her frame.

"Pretty!" Seto said.

"Not bad!" Kano said.

"Eh..." Shintaro got up.

"Onii-chan you meanie!"

* * *

"Delicious!" Momo said as she ate a takoyaki.

"I wonder how the boys are doing..." Mary said.

"We did split up by gender, huh?" Ayano said.

"Jeez! Onii-chan's probably lost by now without me!" Momo said.

"Pfft! Do you have some sort of brother complex?" Kano laughed.

"No! It's just..." Momo looked downwards, "Everyone else pays attention to me, but never him, we're siblings, but we barely spend time together whether we're arguing or having a blast. Onii-chan just ignores me."

"Um!" Ayano and Momo looked towards Mary.

"Is anyone going to question why Kano is here with the girl group?"

...

"KANO WHERE'S KIDO?!" Ayano freaked.

* * *

"Why do you want to come with me?" Shintaro asked Kido.

"I don't feel comfortable with Momo and Mary since they're new to me..." Kido said.

"Is Kido in our group now?" Seto asked.

"I'm not sure anymore..."

Kido tugged on Shintaro's sleeve.

"What is it?"

Kido pointed over to a cotton candy stand.

"Delicious! It's so sweet and fluffy!" Seto said while ripping off another piece of his blue cotton candy and eating it.

Kido nodded in agreement as she ripped off another piece of her pink cotton candy.

"Shintaro, here..." Kido handed the piece to Shintaro.

"Hm? Oh, thanks," he said as he took the piece.

"Takane! Where are you?!"

They turned around to see a guy a bit taller than Shintaro and had a mole under his right eye yelling, "Takane!"

The guy noticed their gazes on him and he walked over to them.

"Have you guys seen a girl with black pigtails around this tall," he put his hand by his shoulder to show her height.

"No," Shintaro simply said while Seto and Kido shook their heads 'no'.

"Okay, thanks anywa-" the guy noticed a red gleam coming from the kids eyes.

Seto and Kido noticed that his gaze was on their eyes so they quickly hid behind Shintaro.

"Are you guys... doing cosplay?" the guy asked with a smile.

"Eh?" the 3 froze at how ignorant this person is.

"That's pretty cool!" he said.

"Uh, what's your name?!" Shintaro asked trying to go off topic while Seto and Kido sighed in relief.

"Kokonose Haruka, oh and the girl I'm looking for is named Enomoto Takane," he said.

"I'm Kisaragi Shintaro, if I find Takane then I'll search for you okay?"

"Okay!" Haruka waved goodbye and left.

_I say that when really, how am I suppose to find him if I don't have his contact information?!_

* * *

"GOD *BLEEP*IT WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU HARUKA?!"

Ayano jolted at a girl's language.

"Um!" Ayano walked up to the girl with black pigtails.

"Can you not use that kind of language in front of the kids?"

The girl suddenly grabbed Ayano by her shoulders.

"Have you seen a guy with a mole under his right eye?!" she shook Ayano.

"He's also taller than me, like I'm at the height where I stand at his shoulders," she shook Ayano even more.

"HAVE YOU SEEN A GUY LIKE THAT?!" she shook Ayano even more rash and quicker.

"C-Calm down please! Please?!" she stopped to see Ayano dizzy.

"Sorry! It's just that Haruka has some serious health problems and if he fainted..." the girl turned around and gripped her hair, "AAH THAT FREAKING IDIOT WHERE THE HECK IS HE?!"

"How about I help you? By the way, my name is Tateyama Ayano," Ayano said.

"I'm Enomoto Takane, the guy I'm looking for is Kokonose Haruka," Takane said.

"So, are you babysitting them?" she pointed to the kids by her.

"I guess you can say that, the boy is Kano, the girl with the white hair is Mary, and the girl with the orange hair is Momo."

"Momo? But there is no orange haired girl."

"Eh?"


	4. Chapter 4

Shintaro swore he could hear someone charging and about to tackle him down... he was right though.

"Ow! What was that-?!"

"Shintaro!"

Ayano got up from tackling him down and he saw Kano, Mary, and a girl with black... pigtails.

"Sorry Shintaro but-"

"Are you Enomoto Takane?"

Takane realized he was talking to her.

"Yes..."

"See, I met a guy named Kokonose Haruka who was looking for you-"

Takane immediately grabbed Shintaro by the collar and brought him up to his knees.

"WHERE THE HECK IS HE?!"

"Woah, woah, WOAH! Calm down and don't scream in my ears!"

"Shintaro!"

The two looked to Ayano.

"Momo's missing!"

"WHAT?!"

Shintaro immediately pushed Takane away and stood up on his feet.

"When I was introducing the kids to Takane Momo wandered off... I think..."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU 'THINK'?! YOU JUST LEFT A 6 YEAR-OLD GIRL RUN LOOSE IN A FESTIVAL!"

"W-Waah! I'm sorry Shintaro!" Ayano covered her ears from anymore yelling and shut her eyes. She slowly opened her eyes to see Shintaro taking a deep breath.

"No, it's my fault for yelling, come on, let's search for Momo."

"Eh-hem," Takane was glaring daggers at Shintaro once she got up.

"And Haruka."

* * *

"Takane!" Haruka yelled again, "Taka-!"

He thought he heard soft crying coming from the shrine temple.

"Takane?" Haruka listened to the soft crying and followed it and opened the door to the tea ceremony classroom.

Haruka didn't see Takane but he did find a little girl with orange hair crying in the corner farthest from the door.

"*Sob* O-Onii*sob*-chan...!" she murmured between sobs.

"A-Are you alright?" Haruka walked over to the little girl and bent down.

The little girl opened her eyes, "Onii-chan...?"

"Are you looking for your older brother?" Haruka asked.

The little girl nodded quickly and wiped away her tears.

"What happened?"

"I-I saw that the tea ceremony teachers were selling charms so I went to get one but I didn't know how to get back so I ended up crying in the corner without anyone noticing me..."

"Eh, that sounds a bit familiar..."

She looked up to Haruka.

"You see, I went to go get some food from the food stands but ended up getting lost from the huge crowds."

"A-Are you looking for someone?"

"Yeah, I'm looking for a girl named Enomoto Takane, she has black pigtails and looks like she's been having a really bad day."

The girl couldn't help but giggle because of the last description. Haruka smiled because he cheered her up.

"Onii-chan is a bit similar to that, people tell him that he has rotten eyes."

_'Rotten eyes' huh... I've seen a person who looks like people have been telling him that he has rotten eyes... what was his name again...?_

"His name is Kisaragi Shintaro..." they both said and paused.

"... Eh?"

"EH?!" they both screamed at the same time.

"You met onii-chan?!"

"You're his little sister?!"

_Now that I look more closely..._

He saw that Shintaro's little sister had red "contact lenses" and black hair beneath her orange hair, black like Shintaro's hair.

"Oh! Are you part of those little kid cosplayers group who were with Shintaro?!" Haruka asked.

"'Little kid cosplayers group'...?" she sweated a bit.

"Here, how about we go find him together?" he held out his hand.

"Uh, okay!" she grabbed Haruka's hand and he pulled her up, "My name's Kisaragi Momo."

"I'm Kokonose Haruka."

Haruka and Momo went outside to hear familiar voices.

"Haruka! Where are you?!"

"Momo! Can you hear me?!"

"O-Onii-chan...?!" Momo murmured.

"Momo?!"

The two walked out of the shrine temple to see everyone they came here with.

Shintaro and Takane ran ahead of the group.

"Taka-!" Takane started pinching Haruka's cheek.

"Haruka! Did you know how WORRIED I was?!" Takane yelled at Haruka and started to pull at his cheek.

"I' m sorry!" Haruka yelled. Takane lets go of his cheeks and sighs.

"Momo, where were you?!" Shintaro bent down.

Momo started crying again.

"Waah! O-Onii-chan!"

"H-Hey! Why are you crying?!"

She stopped crying for a bit. "I saw the tea ceremony teachers selling charms so I went to get them but I didn't know how to get back..."

Shintaro hit Momo's head.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"For making me worried so much," he sighed, "Jeez, you already have a charm," he pointed to the charm hanging off of a piece of Momo's hair. "Remember? I bought it for you."

"These charms are for everyone else," Momo took the charms out from underneath her sash and handed one to Ayano, Kido, Seto, Kano, and Mary, "Those charms are for happiness and a long life."

"Here." she handed one more to Shintaro, "That charm is one of those love charms, where you give a charm to your beloved that way they're protected, happy, and have a long and healthy life."

Shintaro took the charm. He smiled and sighed. "Thanks."

"That'll be 2000 yen (which is around $20 in the U.S.)," Momo held out her hand.

"THAT'S HIGHWAY ROBBERY!"

"Charms? Shintaro can I see your's?" Haruka asked.

"You're calling me Shintaro even when we just met each other? -Sigh- whatever, here," Shintaro gave Haruka his charm to look at.

_"That charm is one of those love charms, where you give a charm to your beloved that way they're protected, happy, and have a long and healthy life."_

Those words repeated in everyone's heads (except Shintaro's and Haruka's) especially the love and give to you beloved part.

"YAOI?!" the others yelled.

"HAH?!" Shintaro yelled back while Haruka just said, "Eh?"

"And so begins HaruShin-"

"KANO SHUT UP!" Shintaro yelled.

Everyone began to laugh.

As long as Ayano saw and heard everyone laughing, she didn't care if the yaoi part was inappropriate to the kids, everyone was laughing or smiling.

_I wish this moment would last forever..._ Ayano thought.


	5. Chapter 5

"Shintaro! Look over here!"

Shintaro turned his head to Ayano to see her come over with something hidden behind her back.

"What?"

"Ta-da~!"

Ayano puts down a paper crane onto his desk.

On it's right wing it has the number 4 in red marker on it.

He picked it up to see what she folded the crane out of.

"This is the homework I graded a week ago, isn't it?"

"Bingo! How did you remember?" Ayano was curious to see if that day a week ago was that special to him.

"There's a cream stain, that strawberry shortcake your mom bought was delicious by the way," Shintaro pointed to the cream stain right under the 4.

Ayano sighed, "That's what you remembered? Can you remember anything else?"

He looked at her oddly when she asked the 2nd question.

"Of course I remember that day-"

"No, I'm talking about the future, like time loops."

Shintaro tried unfolding the paper crane, "You're acting weird, Ayano."

"Ayano! Can you help clean up?" a girl called who was holding a broom.

"Okay!" Ayano turned to Shintaro, "What are you doing, Shintaro?"

"Unfolding. I want to try folding a paper crane, so I'm learning it backwards," Shintaro said as she left.

"Jeez, do you think I can't see small handwriting?" he murmured.

"'Try unfolding me, there's a message inside'," he repeated as everyone left to go home.

Once he was done unfolding there was a question on it.

It said, 'Do you remember the unbeatable heat?'

Shintaro took a pencil out of his bag and wrote down:

_Of course I do, do you think I don't? Remember, I have an IQ of 168. Also, how can I not remember all that has happened, over, and over, again, and again._

He folded it back into it's original form and stuffed it into his back pack, and left to go pick up Momo from her school.

* * *

**If you guys have an idea for some chapters then tell me and I'll figure out how to turn it into a part of the story. These ideas, please make sure that they are still kids.**

**You don't have to do this if you guys don't want to.**

**I'll be doing this until chapter 8, 9, or 10.**

**\- PandaLover1358**

**P.S. I just realized that this is a REALLY short chapter =w=" sorry about that!**


	6. Chapter 6

"Can you find it?"

"No."

"Jeez, you're so useless!"

"'Useless'?"

"My mom taught me that word, it means you can't do anything."

"I-I can do stuff!"

"Can't find my earring though."

Shintaro and Momo walked by 2 little kids by the lake.

"Ah! Look Hibiya!" the girl with low pigtails smiled.

"What Hiyori?" a boy, presumably Hibiya, asked the girl, presumably Hiyori, when his face was met with a crayfish.

"... Aah!" Hibiya fell backwards.

"Pfft, the only thing you're good at is a good look on your face!" Hiyori laughed while putting the crayfish on the grass, which went back into the stream they were by.

"Hey, what are you guys doing?!" Shintaro asked Hibiya and Hiyori, "It's getting late! Shouldn't two 2 year-old kids be going home by now?"

"We would have been home by now if my earring didn't drop into the stream!" Hiyori yelled.

"Onii-chan! Let's go help them!" Momo started tugging at his sleeve.

"Eh? Do we have to?" Shintaro REALLY wasn't in the mood to find an earring in a stream.

"Yes!" Momo dragged Shintaro down the hill but, like usual, tripped on a rock and the siblings ended up rolling down the hill.

"Hiyori, do you hear that?" Hibiya got up.

"Yeah," the two turned their heads around to be met with two rolling bodies which hit them, causing all four of them to go into the stream.

Soon enough their heads popped up from the stream.

"Dang it Momo!" Shintaro yelled at Momo, "Why do you always trip over a freaking ROCK?!"

"I don't always do that!" Momo yelled back.

Shintaro sighed, "Do you remember that time you tripped over a rock and rammed your head into a pole?"

Momo looked away and forced a smile, "Y-Yes..."

Hiyori started tugging at Shintaro's sleeve, "Are you trying to help us?"

He looked over to Momo who was shaking her head 'yes' very quickly.

"Sure... why not..."

"Yay! Thank you! You'll probably be more helpful than this idiot!" Hiyori pointed to Hibiya while saying that last sentence.

"'Helpful'? 'Idiot'?" Hibiya got confused.

"More words my mom taught me, helpful means you can help others, idiot means you're not smart."

"Hey! I can help others and I'm smart!"

* * *

"Jeez," Shintaro grumbled while drying Hiyori's hair with a towel.

"We had to bring you guys to our house just to dry you guys up AND because the sun went down!"

"C'mon! It's not that bad!" Momo said while drying Hibiya's hair.

"We have two cute toddlers here at our house!" Momo tried hugging Hibiya but he was pushing her away.

"Go away auntie!" he yelled.

Momo begun to pinch Hibiya's cheek, "Don't call me auntie!"

"I'm sorry!" Hibiya cried out.

"What kind of earring did you have?" Shintaro asked.

"Um... oh!" Hiyori took off the earring she still had and showed it to Shintaro.

The earring had a large pink flower with a small black flower dangling off of it.

"It looks like this! Except the colors go the other way!"

"'The other way'? You mean reverse?" Shintaro wasn't use to 2 year-old vocabulary.

"'Reverse'? What does that mean?" Hiyori had a clueless look on her face while Shintaro started grumbling more.

"I mean, the big flower is black and the small flower is pink on the other one, right?"

"Yeah! You're really smart!" Hiyori got her hair bands and tied her hair into pigtails again after Shintaro finished drying her hair.

"What are we suppose to do with you guys now? You guys don't even know you're home phone number so we can't call your parents!" Shintaro got up.

"Don't call us 'you guys', my name's Asahina Hiyori!"

"Amamiya Hibiya..."

Shintaro had to go dry Hibiya's hair now since he didn't allow "auntie" to do so anymore.

"I'm not auntie, I'm Kisaragi Momo! You can call me Momo if you like!" Momo told Hibiya who hid behind Shintaro.

"Kisaragi Shintaro..." he sighed, "So, what are we supposed to do with you guys now?"

"Don't call us 'you guys'!" Hiyori repeated.

"Do you guys know where your home is?" Shintaro asked.

The two shook their heads 'no'.

"We didn't come with our parents.

"Yay! Sleepover!" Momo cheered which then Hiyori cheered too and the girls dragged Hibiya to the living room.

_Wait a minute,_ Shintaro sweated a bit, _if they don't know where their home is, nor their contact, how are we supposed to get them home?!_


	7. Chapter 7

Shintaro slowly opened his eyes.

_What happened last night?_

He tried getting up but fell right back down.

Shintaro tried opening his eyes more to see that he was sleeping upside down on the couch.

"Eh?"

He quickly got up and examined the room.

The television was right in front of him and it seemed like he was playing Street Fighters 2 since the game was on pause and there was a controller by him. On the other side of the couch there was Hibiya who looked like he would fall off of the couch any moment.

On the floor Momo and Hiyori were asleep with a couple of snacks and drinks spilled onto the floor.

_I-If I remember correctly we had that sleepover then- uh- I think I kept winning and Hibiya wanted a rematch over and over again till all of us fell asleep...? Jeez, everyone's a mess though..._

Shintaro got up and walked toward the kitchen to see his mom asleep on the dining table with a bunch of bags. He went to check what was in the bags and there were a bunch of snacks and drinks in the bags. He took out a pack of Coca-Cola and walked back to the living room, just in case they woke up and wanted some too.

"Hn? Morning already?" Momo got up rubbing her eyes.

"Auntie shut up...!" Hibiya said half awake,

"You should shut up too...!" Hiyori got up and fell onto Momo's lap.

"I got some soda if you guys want," Shintaro said while opening the pack and got out 4 cans.

"Thanks onii-chan..." Momo held her hand out while Shintaro putted a can onto it and gave one for Hibiya and Hiyori too.

All four of them opened it only to have the soda explode and get it all over themselves.

"Freakin' wake up calls..." they all murmured as they were all wide awake now.

"Shintaro?" Ayano opened the door that was forgotten to be locked by Mrs. Kisaragi.

The four looked grumpily at her with Cola all over themselves.

"Waah! U-Um! I'll go get some towels!" Ayano came in and left the door open and ran upstairs to get some towels.

"Onee-chan, if their mom didn't lock the door then you should have locked it!" Seto yelled while coming in with Kido and Kano and locking the door.

"Oh! Soda!" Kano ran over and got some for Seto and Kido too.

The three opened it and even more Cola exploded.

"I'm back- WAAH!" Ayano saw her adopted siblings covered in Cola too when she came down.

* * *

"Aah, thanks Ayano!" Momo said while wiping herself with a towel.

"Good thing we didn't drink it before brushing our teeth!" Hiyori said while Shintaro, who already got cleaned, cleaned her hair.

"Hibiya, do you need help cleaning up?" Ayano bent down while Hibiya had trouble cleaning himself.

"Sure..." Ayano took the towel and started wiping him.

"Why did you guys even come hear?" Shintaro asked.

"I thought that we could all go to the mall together..." Ayano said, "You know, since we don't have school today."

"Sure, when we're all cleaned..." Shintaro noticed something.

"Hiyori, what happened to your other earring?"

"Eh?!" Hiyori felt her ear to find no earring, "Oh no!"

She went over to the couch and looked through it and looked beneath the snacks to find no earring.

"No way..." Hiyori sniffled.

"W-Wait, are you crying?!" Shintaro panicked.

"I'm not crying!" Hiyori glared at him while keeping the tears in.

"Oi..." Shintaro sweated and murmured, "Are you trying to be a tsundere?"

* * *

"Let's split into groups," Shintaro sighed.

"Eh? Why?!" Ayano asked.

"Well, the girls want to do clothes and the guys would rather do something else, right?"

Everyone was quiet.

"Actually that's pretty true..." Hibiya murmured while everyone else agreed.

"Then let's meet at the food court later," Shintaro walked away while Seto, Kano, and Hibiya followed him.

Kido watched as the boys went into a game store. She could feel people staring at her and started to sweat nervously. Kido slowly turned around to see Ayano, Momo, and Hiyori staring at her.

"U-Um, is something wrong?"

...

"What kind of dress do you think Kido would look best in?" Ayano asked.

"Maybe a red one?" Hiyori asked.

"Or maybe a frilly one with tons of ribbons!" Momo said.

"Eh?" Kido started blinking nervously as the three grabbed her and ran into some random shop.

* * *

"Jeez!" Shintaro grumbled as he rested his chin on his hand while the others were eating some fries.

"Why is it taking the girl's so long?!" Shintaro took a sip of his soda.

"But aren't they shopping for clothes?" Seto asked.

...

"We might have to wait here till the mall closes..." all of them sweated.

"Hibiya?! Is that you?!"

They looked over to a woman and a man who both had black hair.

"Hiyori's mom and dad?!" Hibiya got up from his seat and ran to them.

"Aah! We were so worried about you! Where's Hiyori?!"

"Papa? Mama?!" Hiyori ran from the girls and into her parents arms.

"Hiyori!" her parents yelled while hugging her tight.

"Come on, let's go home now, we need to go back to our hometown tomorrow..."

"Okay!" Hiyori held her mom's hand while Hibiya held her dad's hand.

"Hiyori, wait!" Shintaro ran over to Hiyori and bent down while digging through his pockets. "Here!"

He got out a piece of cardboard that had earrings on them. The earrings looked exactly like Hiyori's except there was another flower dangling below that was smaller. For the pink to black one a blue flower and the black to pink one a red flower.

"Waah!" Hiyroi took the earrings, "Thank you, Shintaro!"

She smiled, "I knew that you were more useful than Hibiya!"

"Hey!"

_With all of the members that have now met Shintaro, they have a stronger bond with him now,_ Ayano smiled, but it was a sad smile, _everyone will have a stronger bond and help each other up after I die in the future..._

* * *

**Ack! Sorry guys but I can't take anymore ideas for the story since I have decided when to do which idea on which chapter.**

**... =w='**

**That idea and chapter part sounded a lot better in my head, when I reread it I'm even getting confused OTL**

**Anyways, thank you callmethewordsmith for reminding me about Hibiya and Hiyori (I forgot about them, I feel like a failure T.T ). I came up with an idea for the 2 which was big enough to make 2 chapters and now I'm ready to go with my ideas for the rest of the story now.**

**\- PandaLover1358**


	8. Chapter 8

"If I lose, I'll take back all the words I said, what about you?" Shintaro asked.

"If I lose I'll call you master and do anything you want!" Takane put her hand on her chest.

"Let's begin the game..." Shintaro muttered as he turned his head to the screen.

"You don't have to tell me what to do!" Takane grumpily sat down.

"T-Takane! Remember that you need to lose?!" Haruka whispered.

"Shut up! I NEED to win this game!" Takane yelled.

Everyone looked at their screens and soon left the room one by one.

Takane lost while Shintaro won, with a perfect too.

"N-No way...!" Takane looked astonished.

Shintaro got up from his seat and left once the audience left.

"Ah! Wait! You forgot your prize!" Haruka picked up the rare specimen and ran after Shintaro.

"Sorry, my friend can be rude sometimes..." Ayano smiled worriedly as she sat in the seat besides Takane.

* * *

Shintaro walked down the hall while listening to someone else's footsteps.

He kept walking and listening to those footsteps that weren't his.

He paused and Haruka ran right into his back by accident.

"By the way..." Shintaro mumbled, he turned his head to Haruka and pointed his finger at him, "WHY ARE YOU STILL FOLLOWING ME?!"

Haruka blinked for a while, "Um, you forgot to take your prize-"

"I don't want the prize!" Shintaro yelled.

Haruka just blinked some more, "But you won-"

"That doesn't mean anything if I won just leave me alone!"

"Haruka!"

Shintaro put his arm by his side again, "What?"

"My name is Haruka, remember, Shintaro!"

"I met you before?" now he's just plain confused.

"You know it's not polite to just forget about your friends!"

"Friends? But this is my first time-!"

"Fujoshi? Someone who likes yaoi?"

"Eh?! It's your first time hearing about yaoi and fujoshis?!" two friends that were girls walked by.

...

"OH! YOU'RE THAT GUY FROM THE TANABATA FESTIVAL! THAT REALLY IGNORANT GUY!" Shintaro pointed his finger at Haruka again.

"That jogs your memory?" Haruka sweated, "And calling me ignorant is a bit mean you know..."

"H-Hold on a minute..." Shintaro turned around.

"How did I forget I met him during my childhood? It's true that we didn't know each other well but how did I forget a member as ignorant as him?! Then again this is a different route than the others..." Shintaro kept mumbling to himself.

"Um, hello? Shintaro?" Haruka asked.

"Did you hear any of that?!" he turned around and glared at Haruka.

"N-No, it sounded like jiberish to me..."

_Sometimes it's nice that this guy is ignorant..._

"Wait, 'Shintaro'? You're acting all familiar with me, why's that?"

"Well we are friends right?"

Shintaro was a bit dumbfounded but soon enough he smirked.

"Whatever!" Shintaro sighed and raised his fist in the air diagonally.

Haruka looked dumbfound too but he then smiled. He did the same as Shintaro and put his wrist by Shintaro's making their arms look a bit like an 'x'.

"Huh? Did I know this type of handshake before?" Haruka was confused on how he knew to do that.

Shintaro sighed while sweating a bit.

_Sometimes it's nice that this guy is ignorant, and sometimes it's a bit frustrating..._

"Shintaro!" Kido and Kano ran to Shintaro.

"Let's go home now!" Kano said while tugging at Shintaro's sleeve.

"Okay, let's wait for Ayano outside then," Shintaro said, "You know you don't have to keep tugging at my sleeve since you're not 6 years old anymore, right?" he sweated.

"Actually it became a bit of a habit..." Kano sweated too.

"Can we get some cotton candy on the way outside?" Kido tugged at Shintaro's other sleeve.

"Has it became a habit for you too?" Shintaro started sweating a bit more while Kido nodded.

"Bye, Shintaro, oh and here," Haruka gave the rare specimen to Shintaro anyways.

"Bye, Konoha-" Shintaro realized what he just said and covered his mouth while walking to the entrance with Kido and Kano.

"Er- bye, Haruka."

Ayano walked past Haruka to catch up with the three.

"Konoha?" Haruka questioned.

* * *

"Here."

Kenjirou looked up from his book and saw that Shintaro putted down the rare specimen on his desk.

"Oh! It came back!" Kenjirou was of course very happy to see it again.

"D-Dad..."

Kenjirou turned to the door to see Ayano smiling worriedly.

"Did you spend all of the money the principal gave to you for that?"

He looked away with a very guilty smile while sweating a lot.

Ayano sweated.

"So you did..."


	9. Chapter 9

"EH?! WE MET EACH OTHER BEFORE?!" Takane and Ayano yelled at the same time.

"See? You're the only one that remembers it." Shintaro told to Haruka.

"Now that I think about it..." Takane and Ayano looked at each other.

"... Oh yeah."

Shintaro sighed, "So why are we hanging out with each other?"

"Because we're friends!" Haruka said.

"Then what about him?" Shintaro looked behind him along with the rest to see Kenjirou.

"Yeah why are you here?" Haruka questioned.

"What? A teacher can't spend time with his students and daughter?"

"Principal." Takane said walking ahead of them.

"Alright I'll go..." he turned around.

"Ah! Dad you can stay with us if you want!" Ayano said.

"That's my daughter! Always so sweet and caring!" Kenjirou hugged his daughter.

"Jeez... oh?" Takane looked upwards.

"What's the ma-" Haruka looked up along with everyone else.

"Snow..."

Snow was falling daintily to the ground from the gray sky.

"Pretty..." Ayano murmured. "I wonder if everyone else is seeing this?"

Shintaro held out his hand and a snowflake fell onto his hand, melting away quickly. "How long has it been since it snowed like this..."

Ayano noticed that Shintaro was murmuring something so she tried to read his lips.

_I... thought all... there was was the... unbeatable... heat...?!_

She widened her eyes.

_Shintaro... what are you trying..._

Just then she was hit with a snowball hard enough that she fell softly onto the snow.

"Takane, that wasn't nice to just throw a snowball at her when she's under-guarded," Haruka said but got hit with a snowball too.

"Let's have a snowball fight! I'll definitely win!" Takane yelled, she threw a snowball at Shintaro but he dodged it and it hit Kenjirou.

"STOP MOVING AROUND AND LET ME PUMMEL YOU!" Takane started throwing a lot more but still missed Shintaro.

"You're a lousy aim..." Shintaro grumbled.

"I won't lose either!" Ayano got up with a snowball and threw it but let go the snowball at the wrong time.

Kenjirou got up only to be hit with the snowball that Ayano threw backwards by accident.

"Oh! I want to do a snowball fight too!" Haruka made a snowball and threw it at Shintaro who, of course, dodged it and it hit Kenjirou again.

"HEY! STOP HITTING ME WITH-!"

Shintaro and Takane threw snowballs at his face.

When the snow fell down his face Kenjirou was obviously angry.

"How about this, we start in a count down by 3?" he said, restraining from yelling.

They all molded their snowballs and got ready.

"3... 2... 1!"

Shintaro, Ayano, Takane, and Haruka all threw their snowballs at Kenjirou who fell down from the synchronized snowballs that were thrown at him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Have I mentioned that there is a time skip to their days in high school? (Unless you already noticed in chapter 8)**

* * *

"Valentine's Day... Chocolate... Lover..." Takane looked over to Haruka, who was drawing.

She immediately slammed her head onto her desk causing Headphone Actor do have a deeply traced squiggly line over her face.

"T-Takane?! Is something wrong?!" Haruka grabbed an eraser to erase the line.

_What the heck am I thinking?!_ she thought.

* * *

"You want to make chocolate?" Ayano asked while tying on her apron.

"Yeah, sure, why not!" Takane started grumbling.

"Who are you giving it to?" Ayano got a few molds and Meiji chocolate bars from her backpack.

Takane jolted while tying on her apron, "Uh... for friends...?"

"Okay, I thought you would give them to Haruka tho-"

She slammed her head onto the counter.

Ayano stood there for a while blinking a bit, "T-Takane...? C-Can you help get the other materials...?"

"Sure..." Takane slowly got up and walked to the cabinets across from the stoves.

"So... are you giving your chocolate to Shintaro-"

Now it was Ayano's turn to slam her head onto the counter.

She quickly got up sweating a bit, "N-No! I-I'm doing the same as you!"

"I guess we're pretty alike, huh?" Takane grabbed 2 ice packs and gave one to Ayano.

"Th-Thanks..."

"Eh?! They're making chocolate?!" Haruka asked.

"My daughter told me herself!" Kenjirou said.

Shintaro sat at Takane's desk reading a book.

"Shintaro, do you want to come?" Haruka turned to Shintaro.

"No."

"Why?"

"No."

"Are you even listening?"

"..."

Shintaro put the book closer to his face, hiding it a bit with it, while Haruka sweated a bit and smiled.

"Then, you turn the knob and chop up the chocolate while the water is heating up..." Ayano handed Takane a knife and a chopping board along with a Meiji chocolate bar.

The two chopped up the chocolate and putted it into a bowl and placed it on top of the hot water.

"You can let it melt for a bit..." Ayano said.

Takane and Ayano watched it melt for a bit.

"I think it's good to stir now," Ayano gave Takane a wooden spoon and she stirred the chocolate while Ayano heard the door open.

Ayano turned around to the door, which was opened with Haruka and Kenjirou watching the girls make chocolate.

"Shoo, shoo!" Ayano shooed them away with her hand and the teo closed the door and left.

"Waagh!" Takane screamed.

Ayano walked back to Takane to see that the chocolate somehow exploded a bit over the stove.

Some of it got onto Takane's nose and Ayano giggled a bit.

"Eh?! How are you not interested?!" Haruka asked.

"I'm just not." Shintaro murmured as he put his book down. "Unlike you guys..."

Shintaro slowly stood up and pointed to Haruka with his pointer finger.

"I'm not someone that's a glutton!" Haruka got stabbed with an imaginary arrow that had the word glutton on it.

He then pointed to Kenjirou with the same finger that pointed at Haruka.

"And I'm not someone that would stalk my own daughter, if I even have one when I grow up!" Kenjirou had an imaginary 100 ton concrete block fall onto his head with the word stalker on it.

"Sh-Shintaro... that's pretty mean...!" Haruka murmured while sweating a bit and raising his hand up a bit.

"Stalker... but I don't even stalk my own daughter... that much..." Kenjirou murmured in a corner.

"G-Guys?" Ayano was confused at what happened in the classroom, "We brought chocolate...?"

"Chocolate?!" Kenjirou and Haruka immediately got out from their slump.

*Munch, munch, munch*

Ayano and Takane stared intensely at the boys to see if their chocolate was bad or not.

"As expected from my daughter!" Kenjirou said while taking his last bite of his chocolate.

"This is delicious, Takane!" Haruka said while munching on Takane's "friend" chocolate.

Shintaro took a bite out of Ayano's chocolate, then one from Takane's.

"W-Well, Shintaro?" Ayano asked.

He swallowed.

"... meh."

Ayano felt like her world fell while Takane grabbed Haruka's cheek.

"YOU WERE JUST TRYING TO FLATTER ME WEREN'T YOU?!"

"N-No! I was being honest!" Haruka yelped.

"At least..."

Everyone stopped and looked at Shintaro.

"At least these meet the expectations of chocolate consumers..."

Ayano brightened up.

"I can't believe a jerk like you could actually, sorta, compliment our cooking skills..." Takane lets go of Haruka's cheek.

"Are those..." Shintaro pointed to her bag which was sorta lumpy.

Ayano smiled while taking out 3 chocolates that were in boxes.

"Yep! For my beloved family!"

She held up a purple box with a green ribbon, "This one's for Kido!"

She then held up a green box with a yellow ribbon, "This one's for Seto!"

Finally, she held up a black box with a white ribbon, "And this one's for Kano!"

Since she took out the chocolates she left her bag open and there was one more chocolate in a red box and white ribbon.

"You forgot-" Shintaro then noticed that the ribbon was made of a lab coat, like the one her mother used to wear.

"Is something wrong?" Ayano asked while putting the boxes back in her back pack and closing it.

"... Nothing." Shintaro sat down and picked up his book and started reading again.

"JEEZ! FINISH YOUR SENTENCE!" Takane usually got angry whenever he doesn't finish his sentences.

"Shut up, your annoying," he murmured.

"ANNOYING?! I'LL SHOW YOU ANNOYING!" Takane picked up the rare specimen, which Kenjirou brought back to the classroom, and was about to chuck it at Shintaro when Kenjirou, Ayano, and Haruka ran over to restrict her.

Kenjriou holding her down, Ayano trying to take the rare specimen out of her hands, and Haruka trying to calm her down.

"What would you understand..." Shintaro murmured, using the book to cover his mouth, "You don't even remember that unbeatable heat... the same like everyone else who was killed in Kur- no- _his_ hands..."


	11. Chapter 11

"Can we study at the library?" Ayano asked.

"It's for you and Takane, isn't it?" Shintaro and Haruka walked ahead of the girls, since the girls just got their pride hurt.

"ARE YOU CALLING US STUPID?!" Takane yelled, she grabbed Ayano and ran after them.

"I never said that," Shintaro sighed.

"I think it's fine, I don't mind helping you guys study," Haruka smiled.

He sighed again, "3 to 1, fine let's go."

"Then you do this..." Haruka pointed to certain things on Takane's sheet.

"Do you undertsand?"

Takane nodded, he looked over to Ayano and she nodded too.

"More importantly..."

Takane got up from her seat and pointed at Shintaro.

"WHY ARE YOU READING WHEN WE CAME HERE TO STUDY?!"

"Shh!" the librarian shushed them.

"I don't need to study," Shintaro flipped the page.

"THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE COME WITH US!" Takane yelled.

"Shh!" the librarian shushed them.

"That's why I didn't want to come here."

Takane felt like flipping over the table any moment by now.

"C-Calm down! Just let him read!" Ayano gently pushed Takane back down to her seat.

Takane's eyebrow was twitching.

"Try taking a deep breath," Haruka said.

Takane breathed in and out.

"You sound like a fish out of water." Shintaro flipped another page.

"That's it...!" Takane gritted threw her teeth.

She got up and knocked down her chair and picked up part of the table when the librarian came over and knocked her head with a book.

"OW!" Takane turned around, "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT FOR?!"

The librarian glared daggers at Takane, causing her to back down and shiver in fear.

"I-I'm sorry..." she murmured as she picked up her chair and sat down quietly.

As the librarian walked away Haruka and Ayano smiled worriedly at Takane.

"A-Are you okay...?" Ayano asked.

"Sure... why not..." Takane sighed.

"We should go to a different library next time, without Shintaro and a scary librarian," Takane rested her chin on the table.

"Why not Shintaro?" Haruka and Ayano asked, which caused Takane's eyebrows to twitch more.

"Are you guys oblivious idiots?!" Takane smiled a very twitchy smile.

"But, it's nice to spend time with all of your friends," Ayano smiled hesitantly.

"He's not my friend-"

"If I'm right, I'm your master right?" Shintaro flipped another page.

"You...!" Takane started twitching even more.

"But, who says a master and his underling can't be friends?" Shintaro put the book closer to his face which covered his entire face.

Takane looked at Shintaro with a surprised face while Haruka and Ayano looked at each other and smiled.

"Although some of us always bicker, have health problems, and even family problems..."

Shintaro put his book down and looked at Ayano along with Haruka and Takane.

"I never want these days to end!" Ayano smiled a gentle and warm smile.

"Yeah."

Haruka, and Takane looked over to Shintaro who was smirking.

"Neither do I."

Haruka and Takane looked at each other and smiled.

_But next week... is when this all ends..._

* * *

**Yeah, this isn't a very long chapter like chapter 5 but I'm typing 3 chapters for today (that's quite a lot =w=" ) so 2 chapters done! One more to go! But I got to warn you guys, the next is a bit of a cliff hanger.**

**\- PandaLover1358**


	12. Chapter 12

"1!" Kido pointed to herself.

"2!" she pointed to Seto.

"3!" she pointed to Kano.

"What are you guys doing?" Shintaro asked.

"Member numbers!" Seto said.

"Member numbers?" the rest said simultaneously.

"Ah, it's a little gang we made, the numbers are our code names," Ayano explained.

"Then what number are you?" Shintaro asked.

"0!"

He looked at her weirdly.

"I-It's because I'm the founding leader, Kido's the actual leader since she's 1."

"And now that you guys know everything, you guys have to join too!" Kano said with a smirk.

...

...

...

"EH?!" everyone yelled in unison.

"Then, Mary is No. 4!" Kido pointed to Mary who gave a very hesitant 'yes!'

"Momo! No. 5!" she pointed to Momo.

"Takane is No. 6!" she pointed to Takane who grumbled.

"Shintaro is No. 7!" she pointed to Shintaro who smiled a very twitchy smile while sweating a bit, "I ask a few questions and this is what I get...?"

"And Haruka is No. 9!" she pointed to Haruka.

"You skipped 8," Momo said.

"Well, I thought that either Hibiya or Hiyori if we ever see them again would be number 8..."

"What kind of order did you even put us in?" Shintaro sweated.

"I... sorta did it depending on who came up in my mind first..." Kido smiled a twitchy smile too.

* * *

_I remember everyone started laughing or gave a smirk..._ Ayano thought while walking through the school's courtyard.

Ayano kept walking and into the school building. She passed by her dad's classroom.

_This was where Takane and Shintaro were playing the game and when we reunited..._

She went up the stairs to find the classroom that Shintaro and herself were in.

_In this route, he kept yelling at me, saying "Stop stuffing my desk with paper cranes" and he seemed to give me more company rather then say I'm a pest... I wonder if he does remember that unbeatable heat..._

She kept going up the stairs to reach the top of the school building. She looks at where she is standing, feeling the breeze, and her red scarf fluttering. Ayano can see the entire city above here. The weather's nice up here, too bad she has to ruin it, but it's not like she has a choice, right?

_After all, this is my lonely mission..._

Ayano walks forward to the fence, she could see a ledge big enough so that a teenager could stand on it.

_So I have to climb over this huh?_

She grabs onto it and puts her feet on it and started climbing.

_The news reporter and police will probably think I did suicide and everyone will probably hate me afterwards, but..._

She grabs onto the the top of the fence.

_I wonder if I'll become their "big sister" afterwards..._

Ayano climbs up and sits down on top of the fence. It was a really nice view here. Now she just needs to jump down onto the ledge and jump down from the building.

"Ayano?"


	13. Chapter 13

**WARNING:... well warning =w=" there's a spoiler warning (right below this line) and a warning for the story.**

**Has anyone watched Episode 9? SPOILER- Don't worry, Ayano is Ayano in this story not the whole Kano-Ayano mix up.**

* * *

"Ayano?"

Ayano turned around to see her dad.

"D-Dad?" she didn't understand why her dad was here at a time like this.

"What are you doing up there? That's pretty dangerous!"

"T-Trying to get a better view of the city...?" Ayano didn't want her dad to find out about her lonely mission.

Kenjirou sighed, "Okay then. Well Takane and Haruka are looking for you."

"Th-They are?"

"Yes, now get down from there! That's dangerously close to falling off the school building!"

"O-Ok!" Ayano hesitantly hopped down the fence and walked over to her dad.

When Ayano entered the building again her dad closed and locked the door.

"Ayano! There you are! Did you forget?!" Takane yelled from below the stairs.

"Forget...?" she was confused about what Takane was talking about.

"We were going to study together again!" Haruka yelled, "We decided to go to Shintaro's house since whenever the librarian saw Takane she glared a lot at us." Haruka shivers a bit along with Takane when they remembered her glares. "You've been to his house, right?"

Ayano walked down the stairs, "Yes..."

"Can you guide us? We can't really study together if we can't find the location since that jerk didn't even wait for us," Takane said once Ayano reached them.

"Right, uh, I'll be going ahead, okay?"

"Okay, can you pick up the kids while you're at it?"

"Okay!" Ayano yelled before the three left his sight.

...

"Honestly," Kenjirou sighed, "Shintaro, how did you know that Ayano was at the top of the building?"

* * *

"We're going to Shintaro's house?" Kido asked.

"Yeah, we need to study and I can't leave you guys at home by yourself, where's Seto?" Ayano asked.

"Over here!"

The five looked behind them to find Seto giving Mary a piggy-back ride.

"I decided to bring her over again. You guys weren't at home so I thought you guys probably went to Shintaro's again, " Seto caught up with them. "Mary also sprained her ankle while we came here."

They walked on.

"I don't remember that we said we would study together at his house though..." Ayano said.

"Well, Shintaro came to us and told us that you were fine with it, "Takane said.

"He thought that we should do that since we didn't get much done last time, " Haruka said, "Did he not tell you?"

"N-No... Maybe he thought about doing it and forgot but figured I would come anyways..." _Shintaro, what are you trying to do?_

"Oh, Momo!" Mary spotted Momo who was coming from the other direction.

* * *

"Tch, home already? I need to do this quickly."

* * *

"Hey, guys, are you here to study or something?" Momo rang the doorbell.

"Yeah," Haruka said.

Momo rang it again.

"Huh?" Momo looked up to the windows to see that her brother closed the curtains in his room already and thought he probably didn't bother at opening the door.

"Jeez! You're so lazy!" Momo yelled and looked under the mat to get the keys.

"Don't tell anyone about this," Momo told the rest while inserting the key and opening the door.

When everyone entered they heard something drop.

"Hm? That sounded like something big dropped onto a bed or something like that..." Kano said.

"Onii-chan! What are you doing!" Momo dropped her bag and ran upstairs while the rest dropped their bags and ran after Momo too.

Momo grabbed the door knob to Shintaro's room but it was locked.

"Eh? Why would Shintaro close his curtains and lock his door?" Haruka asked.

"How would I know!" Momo started banging the door, "Onii-chan! Open up the door!"

There was no answer.

"Here, let me try," Kido grabbed a bobby pin from the part of her hair that was covering her eye and inserted it into the key hole and twisted it a bit, "Mm... There!" they heard a 'k-chack' as Kido opened the door and took one step inside and paused.

"N-No... way..." Kido murmured.

Everyone saw her trembling and growing pale.

"Kido...?" Ayano asked.

"No way...!" Kido fell backwards and sat there trembling. She covered her mouth with both of her hands as tears started flowing down her face.

Ayano entered and she heard a splat from underneath her feet.

She looked down to see that she stepped in red fluid.

"Is this...?!" there was a large trail of the red fluid and Ayano slowly followed it with her eyes as everyone entered and widened their eyes at the sight.

The source of the red fluid was on the bed. On the bed laid Shintaro, who was the source of the red fluid. In his neck was a red pair of scissors and the blades that were partially sticking out from the back of his neck were covered in the red fluid. This red fluid was obviously Shintaro's blood.

Soon enough, everyone started crying, or screaming, or even both.


	14. Chapter 14

_Shintaro..._

"No way...! O-Onii-chan...?" Momo fell to her knees, "This, can't be real... no way! Onii-chan!" Soon enough tears started falling down her face and she gripped her hair, "ONII-CHAN! WHY WOULD YOU KILL YOURSELF?!"

_Why..._

"Sh-Shintaro..." Mary covered her mouth with her hands too and tears fell down, "Seto... what should we do...?"

_Just why...?!_

"I... I wouldn't know..." Seto gritted his teeth as tears started falling down.

_I lived but..._

"LIAR! IDIOT! JERK!" Takane yelled, "WHY?!" She soon fell onto her knees and fell down onto her hands and tears started falling to the floor, "Just... why...? We were just arguing hours ago... how can you be dead now?!"

_Why would you kill_ _yourself?!_

Ayano covered her face with her hands. She could feel her tears on her hands and the tears rolled off her hands and dropped into the blood.

"Haruka... what are you-"

"I'm checking if he's alive still."

Kano grabbed Haruka's arm.

"Stop."

"But-"

"JUST STOP!" Kano couldn't hold in his tears anymore as he softened his grip. He could have worn a mask but, he tried his best to and just couldn't.

Haruka slipped out of his grip and sat on Shintaro's bed.

When he took a closer look, tears started falling one by one, dropping onto the bed.

He slowly put the back of his hand on his cheek. He was cold.

Haruka rested his back on the wall as tears started falling down quicker. He took his hand off and rested it on the bed when...

"Are these... breathes...?!" Haruka quickly got up and put his hand closer to Shintaro's mouth that was slightly open.

He felt him breathing in softly and breathing out quickly.

"Guys! Shintaro's still alive!" Haruka yelled while getting off the bed.

Everyone got up.

"Then what are we supposed to do now?!" Takane yelled.

"I already called 119!" Kido said, slowly coming into the room and wiping her tears.

* * *

"There it is!" Hiyori got her black-pink-red earring from the grass.

She sighed in relief as she held it close to her chest, "Good thing I didn't lose this."

"Hibiya? Hibi- There you are!" Hiyori ran up to Hibiya.

"I found it!"

She looked at Hibiya who just stood there.

"Hibiya?"

Hiyori stepped to his side to see that he was staring astonishingly at something.

She turned around to see an ambulance and a few policemen at a house.

"What happened?"

"Look at who's in the bed," Hibiya pointed at it with a shaky finger.

Hiyori couldn't quite see so she squinted her eyes and bent forward a bit and when she was finally able to make out the image, she dropped her earring.

* * *

Everyone was now waiting, sitting outside of Shintaro's room, waiting for the doctor and nurses to come out. They were all quiet.

Mary got up, "I'm going to get a drink."

She walked, limping a bit.

"Right, you sprained your ankle," Seto got up, "Since we're here, how about we treat your ankle."

Mary stopped in her tracks.

"I'm... fine..." she said without turning around.

"You're limping Mary, c'mon let's-"

"I'm fine!" Mary turned around with tears falling down. "I-I'm fine...!" She started crying.

Seto walked over and hugged her. Mary cries were a bit muffled by his chest.

They heard the door open and paid attention to the doctor and nurses coming out.

They all stare at the doctor.

...

"I'm sorry for your lost."


	15. Chapter 15

**Well I specifically put Shintaro's death as chapters 13 and 14 for a reason. 13 is an unlucky number, as many people know. In China (other East Asia countries too) 4 is an unlucky number because when you say it in their language it sounds similar or identical to 'death' (in their language of course) and for 14 it's an unlucky number too since those countries try to avoid any other digital uses of 4 (I used 14 since it's after 13... also because I wanted to do the Tanabata festival). That's how I planned it out.**

* * *

Momo fell down again and started crying some more.

"May we go see him, one last time?" Ayano asked.

The doctor nodded his head as Ayano entered.

She walked in and closed the door.

"Shintaro, why would you kill yourself if I'm not dead?" Ayano sighed as she walked over to his corpse.

"Then again, how are you suppose to answer me right now?"

"In one of the routes, you killed yourself after I died, in the rest of the routes, _he_ kills you and everyone else. In this route," she held her throat, "You killed yourself even though I lived, you stabbed your own throat with a red pair of scissors."

Ayano lets go of her throat, "I almost died when my dad came at the moment somehow, as though he knew where I was."

She soon stopped when she heard a hiss. Ayano looked at Shintaro who she saw was eaten by a black snake.

She tried to reach him but it was too late. When she heard the door open she looked at it to see Kido.

"Did... you see that... too?" Ayano asked.

Kido slowly nodded her head, "What happened to Shintaro?"

"What...?!"

Ayano turned her head back to the bed to not see Shintaro.

"Don't tell me... he was actually eaten?" Ayano said.

"We followed the ambulance as quick as we could!" Hibiya yelled while running down the hall.

"Hibiya and Hiyori! What are you doing here?" Kano asked as Hibiya and Hiyori came to them and fell down from exhaustion.

"We saw Shintaro," Hiyori said, "When the ambulance left we followed it, what happened?"

The two waited for Kano to answer but he just looked at the others.

Momo was crying with her head down, Seto was hugging Mary while she cried too, he tried to hold back his tears but a few came out, Takane was covering her face with her hands, stifling a few sniffles, and Haruka was sitting in a fetal position.

"I really want to know too, but..." Hibiya could tell that asking what would happen would bring up unwanted memories.

"Right..." Hiyori said while putting on her earring.

Ayano and Kido came out of the room.

"Kano, Seto, we need to talk to you," Ayano said as she grabbed Kano and walked over and turned into a different hall.

Kido tugged at Seto softly, "Come on."

Seto slowly let go of Mary and followed Kido who went to the same hall as Ayano and Kano.

"We... saw _it_," Ayano put her hands behind her back and swung her foot a bit.

"'It'?" Kano questioned.

"A black snake," Kido answered.

"Eh? Was it venomous or something?" Seto asked.

"It wasn't a small snake, more like a giant snake, " Kido looked down, "It ate Shintaro."

"HAH?!" Kano and Seto yelled in unison who were clamped by Kido who said, "Shh!"

"I know, I know, we're confused too," Ayano said, "I tried to reach Shintaro but Kido came in and I looked at her and when I turned back, he was gone."

"So he was eaten by the snake and there were no traces of him left?" Seto couldn't believe that Shintaro was literally gone now.

"No traces. Just an empty bed with a white blanket, as though it was never touched before," Kido said.

"I never thought that I would get to see it in real life," Ayano murmured but Kido and Seto heard.

"Wait, you know what's going on with the black snake?!" Kido said while Seto nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I only told Kano though," Ayano said.

The two looked at Kano, who just shrugged his shoulders.

"I can show you the book later, but for now the question is," Ayano stopped swinging her foot, "Why did Shintaro kill himself?"


	16. Chapter 16

"I don't think he was depressed," Kido said.

"He seemed pretty satisfied with his life," Seto said.

"Maybe he was drunk," Kano got elbowed in the stomach.

"This is no time to joke!" Kido raised her fist as Kano held his stomach in pain.

"I-I was just trying to lighten up the mood!"

"He doesn't have a reason to kill himself, huh?" Ayano said.

_Shintaro, what are you trying to accomplish?!_

"We should probably focus on where Shintaro's body is-" Seto was interrupted by Momo who ran behind them in a panic, "Guys! Onii-chan went missing!"

"First..." he sweated a bit.

* * *

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIND HIM?!"

"We're dearly and truly sorry, but we just can't-" "DON'T GIVE ME THAT CRAP!"

Ayano could hear Mrs. Kisaragi yelling over the phone at the doctors because they couldn't find Shintaro as she walked over to the refrigerator. She could have explained it to her but, at this age and such a thing she saw, how would she believe Ayano?

_Even if I was an adult, she'd probably think I'm drunk or got a really bad concussion._

She opened it and scanned for drinks and spotted a gallon a fruit punch so she grabbed it and poured a cup for everyone. Afterwards, she put it back and before closing she noticed something. An unopened box of soda.

_Shintaro really liked his soda, huh? I wonder why he didn't open the box yet then_ she looked at the box to check the expiration date. _August 15. This expired a long time ago- eh?_ Ayano realized the date.

"I'm getting a bit impatient here, will someone tell us?"

Ayano could hear Hibiya but everyone else in the living room was quiet, even though they were quiet since they got here.

"I got some drinks for everyone!" she called from the kitchen as she put the cups on a tray and entered the room.

"Hibiya, I'm impatient too, but..." Hiyori looked down, "Everyone doesn't seem like they want to talk, you know?"

She handed everyone a cup of fruit punch, everyone murmured or whispered a thank you.

"I know that, but, when we were here before we went back to the countryside everyone was talkative and rowdy, but now, it's like they're acting as though," Hibiya soon murmured, "Someone just _died_..."

Takane abruptly got up from the couch and everyone looked at her as she walked over to Hibiya. He and Hiyori looked at her oddly since they didn't know her.

"What-"

She gripped tightly onto her cup and threw the fruit punch at Hibiya's head.

"Hey! What was that-"

"LIKE YOU WOULD KNOW!"

Hibiya paused.

"HOW OBLIVIOUS CAN YOU BE?! CAN'T YOU SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES HOW HURT EVERYONE IS BECAUSE OF THAT STUPID JERK?! WHY DON'T YOU SEE HIM AND TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL!" tears started to fall down.

"OH WAIT, YOU CAN'T SEE HIM ANYMORE! BECAUSE HE...!" she backed off and started crying more, "Because he...!"

"Takane..." Ayano hugged Takane.

Everyone heard footsteps coming down the stairs and looked over to see Kido.

"How's Momo doing?" Mary went up to Kido. She shook her head 'no'.

"She says she wants to be alone for a bit, but I could hear her softly crying," Kido said quietly, then took out a towel she was holding onto, "I also brought a towel because I heard a splash and thought someone spilled something."

"Then I'll go check on Momo," Mary said, then went upstairs.

Kido turned to Hibiya, "Catch." Kido threw the towel over to Hibiya, "I could tell you if you want, of what happened."

'Kido are you sure?" Seto looked worriedly at Kido.

"Yeah," she went to sit at the couch.

* * *

"M-Momo?" Mary asked softly.

There was no answer. She pressed her ears against the door and she could hear Momo softly crying, like Kido said.

"H-How are you doing?"

"... Fine."

"Can I come in?"

Mary backed off and it took awhile but Momo opened the door.

She was happy that she could do something, so she smiled and entered.

Something about that smile made her smile slightly too.

* * *

"Ayano-nee, Takane, and Haruka were going to study at Kisaragi's house together with Shintaro and we couldn't stay at home by ourselves so we came along and Seto brought Mary along too. We met Momo at the front door and she rang the doorbell but the weird thing was, no one came to open and the curtains in Shintaro's room were closed. Soon enough Momo brought out the keys and opened the door," she took a sip of her fruit punch.

"When everyone entered we heard something big fall onto a bed from upstairs. We went upstairs to Shintaro's room but when Momo tried to open it it was locked. So I tried it and took a bobby pin out of my hair, inserted it into the keyhole, twisted it around a bit, opened it, and-" an unwanted image appeared in Kido's mind and she immediately covered her mouth with both of her hands and widened her eyes.

Seto patted Kido's back, "Don't push yourself."

"As you can tell, once Kido saw what was inside she fell backwards and covered her mouth and started crying." Haruka spoke, "We all entered to see what happened and the sight was terrible. On the bed laid Shintaro, there was a pair of red scissors in his throat, and it was long enough to be partially sticking out of the back of his neck." Hibiya widened his eyes while Hiyori gasped.

"Immediately everyone broke down, but I didn't want to believe that he was dead, so I checked and he was cold. I laid back when I felt him softly breathing so I told everyone and Kido called 119 and we went to the infirmary only to have the doctor apologize for our lost," he looked down and smiled sadly, "Sorry, I didn't mean to get our hopes up that he's alive only to have the doctor tell us that."

"No way..." Hiyori took off her earrings and tears dropped onto the earrings. "No way!" she held her earrings close to her chest and started crying.

"Why would he just... do that to himself...?!" Hibiya gripped tightly onto the carpet.

Ayano slowly lets go of Takane and got up.

"Ayano...? What are you..."

"I'm going to check on Mary and Momo, 'kay?" she left and went upstairs.

Of course that was a lie.


	17. Chapter 17

Ayano looked at the door, it still had Kido's bobby pin in the key hole and the door was closed.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

The floor was clean but it had a tint of blood. With the bed, the blanket is crimson and the bed was probably crimson too. The stench was still there though. Ayano closed the door and looked around the room more.

There was a large desk with a office chair and a computer on the desk. A soda can was there but it was empty. There was also a tissue box sitting by the empty can. She noticed that one of the drawers was open.

She walked over there to close it when she saw a fairly familiar crane in it.

It was the crane that she gave to Shintaro when they were still 8. She picked it up to see it poorly refolded. _Was this what Shintaro meant by trying to learn how to fold one? So he could refold it?_

Ayano unfolded the paper crane and saw his answer. _I thought he would notice...!_

She noticed small hand writing at the bottom right corner of the paper. She squinted her eyes to see it better but it didn't help. _How can he write that small?!_

She opened the rest of the drawers to try and find a magnifying glass or glasses, but she didn't find any. None.

"Shintaro, how am I supposed to read this?!" Ayano whispered/yelled.

Ayano looked around the room and saw that the closet was opened and saw a very dusty printer and scanner with cables was barely sticking out of the corner of the closet. She picked it up and brought it to the desk and put it on the desk and dust from it flew everywhere and Ayano started swatting the air and tried her best not to breathe in the dust.

She took a couple of tissues and wiped it and connected it to the computer. She turned on the computer which, of course, had a password.

"How am I supposed to know?!" Ayano yelled while messing up her hair.

"Are you okay up there?!" she heard Takane yell from below.

"Y-Yesh...?" Ayano sweated a bit.

"'Yesh'...? -Sigh- Whatever!"

Ayano slapped herself on the forehead and fell down onto the office chair

She rested her elbow on the desk and the side of her head on her hands, while she tapped on the desk every second or so with her other hand with the finger on her pointer finger.

"What could it be..." she noticed that the can fell down because she started tapping with more force.

"Wait a minute...!"

She typed in soda for the password, and it started loading to the home page.

Ayano turned on the scanner and scanned in the paper. She went to the document and zoomed in to the small writing.

* * *

Momo and Mary sat there in silence.

"Uh... Do you want some fruit punch?"

"No thanks... say Mary," Momo sat in a loose fetal position.

"Yes?"

"Have you ever felt like, when someone dear to you died, do you feel that you're the one responsible for their death?"

"Responsible for someone's death?" Mary remembered that day so clearly. Her mom had protected her from the kids who attacked her but ended up dying. "Yes..."

"That's how I feel now, because onii-chan... maybe I should have treated him differently... or maybe I should have done it instead-"

"That's not true!"

Momo looked up to Mary who was standing up.

"Shintaro's not that type of person! Sure he's grumpy most of the time and yells if you don't listen to him... but, " Mary looked at Momo, "He doesn't let words get to him and he doesn't hold grudges at anyone, so stop thinking that!"

Momo was speechless, but soon smiled.

"Yeah, that isn't very like me..." she held Mary's hands, "Thank you!"

Mary brightened and she smiled back.

* * *

_'Shintaro, Kano, Kano, Seto, Shintaro, Seto, Takane, Kano, Shintaro, Seto, Shintaro, Seto, Kano, Mary, Shintaro, Kano', that's what it says!"_

...

...

...

...

...

"What?"

* * *

**Anyone confused? Yeah, I sorta got confused when I wrote that... =w="**

**Anyways, I've been sorta updating this daily, but I'm going to stop updating this daily until June 18-ish (somewhere around there) I'm not stopping the story! It's just that I REALLY need to update my other fanfics since I have been focusing on this story a lot.**

**When I'm done updating my other fanfics I'm going to continue updating this daily-ish, 'kay?**

**\- PandaLover1358**


	18. Chapter 18

_Shintaro, what does this mean?! _Ayano sweated a bit at the repeating names.

_Why would you put this in some freaky code?! Are you trying to tease me?!_

She looked at the weird code one more time but still couldn't figure out what the heck it was suppose to say.

Ayano slammed her head onto the desk. _How am I suppose to decode this?! This is the problem with having a friend that has an abnormally high IQ!_

She slowly got up and sighed.

_I should probably write down what it says in large and readable handwriting..._

Ayano looked to the drawer that used to have the crane and saw that there was a pen. She took the pen and wrote down the repeating names beneath the small handwriting.

Once she was done she put the pen back and closed the drawer and took the unfolded crane (which would just be paper), folded it up into squares and stuffed it into her red muffler.

_I should probably go to the living room before Mary and Momo get there..._

She walked to the door and opened the door quietly and peeped outside to check for anyone that was near the door. When the coast was clear she walked out with silent footsteps and the closed the door quietly.

_If they're in the living room before me that would have been really-_ Ayano walked down stairs and saw Mary and Momo. _Bad..._

Everyone stared at her while Takane got up and crossed her arms.

"Well?" Takane asked, staring at her suspiciously.

"Hey... guys...?" Ayano said with a twitchy smile.

"Don't just go 'hey guys'!" Takane said.

"When we asked Mary and Momo about you they said that you didn't come," Haruka threw a potato chip into his mouth, "Where were you?"

"Don't steal from the house," Hibiya sweated, "And talk with your mouth full."

"Hm?"

"So, what happened?" Takane started tapping her foot impatiently.

"Um... I wanted to use the bathroom so I searched for it...?"

...

"Does it take that long to find the bathroom?" Seto asked Kido.

"No, unless the place is new to you," Kido answered, "But Kisaragi's house isn't new to Ayano-nee because that time when we got soda all over ourselves she went to the bathroom and got towels..."

"Your really bad at lying!" Kano said to Ayano.

Ayano sweated more when everyone stared at her again.

"It... takes girls a long time to use the bathroom...?"

...

"Does it?" Haruka asked while munching on another potato chip.

All the girls blushed.

"What?"

"HARUKA YOU IDIOT!" Takane yelled while all the girls went upstairs.

"E-Eh?!" Haruka sweated.

Takane pulled Ayano along who hesitantly followed.

The living room was silent.

"I'm confused..." Haruka said.

_How ignorant can you be?!_ the other boys sweated. _Do you not understand privacy?!_

They heard something light fall down the stairs.

The boys looked towards the stairs to find a piece of paper rolling down the stairs by the corners.

"Why is there a folded up piece of paper there?" Hibiya asked.

"Is there something written on the paper?" Haruka asked.

"I'll check," Seto got up and walked over to the piece of paper. He unfolded it and read it.

"..."

"Well? What does it say?" Kano asked.

"... This doesn't make sense," Seto said while looking at the paper oddly.

"Why are our names on here, and repeating?"

* * *

**1- I started typing this on 6/19 but the internet turned off in my house so I couldn't update 'cause the router REALLY likes to turn the internet on and off and on and off**

**2- My mom doesn't want me to be on the laptop at night cause if I do I don't pay attention to the time and I end up going to bed at 12 or 1 a.m. and waking up at 12 noon the next day. So no updating at night.**

**3- I'm slowly running out of ideas for this story**

**To sum this all up- No more daily updates for this story (I'm not stopping the story)**

****When I tried to save this on 6/20 I reached the 50 document limit, so I deleted a document so I could save this chapter. Bad decision. Once I deleted a document this chapter was gone and I slammed my head onto the laptop. I hate it when I have to retype a chapter.****

****Why do these things ****(it's pretty normal to run out of ideas though) ****keep popping up?! It's like when you're walking in grass or in a cave or surfing on a body of water a wild Pok*mon keeps popping up every step you take! *~*****

****\- PandaLover1358****


	19. Chapter 19

"Our names?" Hibiya looks at Seto oddly.

"Well, not yours, mostly mine and Kano..." Seto said.

"What? I'm confused... Show it to us," Hibiya said.

Seto walked over to the boys and placed the paper down.

"'Shintaro, Kano, Kano, Seto, Shintaro, Seto, Takane, Kano, Shintaro, Seto, Shintaro, Seto, Kano, Mary, Shintaro, Kano'... Whats?!" Hibiya read off the list of names and immediately got confused.

"There's something on the top too!" Kano pointed to the top of the paper. "'Do you remember the unbeatable heat?'"

"'Unbeatable heat'? I don't remember anything like that..." Haruka said.

"You forget a lot of things!" Hibiya said.

...

"What?" Haruka asked.

"You barely know anything about me though, all you know is my name when we introduced each other while Ayano was gone! We're practically strangers," Haruka said, "And I have pretty good memory, I mean, I remembered Shintaro even though he forgot about me."

"I know, I know!" Hibiya said in irritation. "It's just...!" Hibiya grumbled then sighed, "Nothing..."

_I can't believe two other people besides me remember!_ Hibiya thought.

"'Of course I do, do you think I don't? Remember, I have an IQ of 168. Also, how can I not remember all that has happened, over, and over, again, and again,'" Kano read off.

"Eh! That's an abnormally high IQ!" Seto said, surprised. "Whoever answered to this question must have been a genius!"

"That IQ score... genius... Oh!" Haruka realized, "Shintaro! Shintaro answered this!"

"Shintaro?!" Seto and Kano asked in unison.

"Yeah! Ayano told Takane and myself about his IQ!"

"I don't get it...! What is this 'unbeatable heat'?" Seto scratched the back of his head.

"Hold on, what kind of paper is...!" Kano flipped the paper over.

"Eh? Isn't this the homework Ayano-nee did on the day we met Shintaro for the first time?" Seto pointed to the shortcake cream stain on the paper.

"Does that mean, Ayano asked Shintaro this question?" Haruka asked.

"This feels like, as though, everything that happened... was _planned_..." Hibiya said.

"Planned?! How is _suicide_ planned?!" Kano snapped.

"K-Kano, calm down..." Seto pushed Kano back slightly since it looked like he would attack Hibiya any moment. "But I do agree with Kano, like, why would suicide be planned?"

"How would I know! But, it's like it is, it's just hard to explain..." Hibiya murmured.

"But that's kind of a brutal way to kill yourself, you know?" Haruka hesitated, "Just the thought if we were actually there when he..."

Haruka shivered at the thought of it and covered his ears because he thought he could hear the scissors.

He suddenly heard a chuckle.

**"Come on, how come you shivered at something like _that_?"** the voice asked, as though it enjoys talking about death.

He widened his eyes at the voice, it sounded like a boy and it was as though he was talking right in his ear. The boy's wicked voice scared him a bit, but what scared him even more was that, he sounded like Haruka's own voice. It was as though it was himself talking to him except his tone of voice sounded like it was twisted and full of poison.

**"Although, that is pretty brutal, but..."**

He whispered something that made Haruka's heart skip a beat.

**"Didn't you do something more brutal than that to your _own_ friends?"**

"Shut up...!" Haruka murmured.

**"Hm? Don't tell me you're scared!"** the voice started laughing, **"Priceless! You're scared of your own sin!"**

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" Haruka yelled, not wanting to hear anymore.

The voice kept laughing.

_"Didn't you hear him? Now shut up."_

"Eh?" Haruka noticed that the voice was familiar, yet not.

Haruka heard nothing. The wicked voice was no longer taunting him.

He slowly yet hesitantly let his hands fall to his lap, his heart, beating fast, and he was sweating.

He looked to the others, who were staring at him.

Seto looked worried, Kano was blankly staring, and Hibiya looked confused.

"Is something wrong...?" Seto asked.

Haruka stared blankly, trying to process everything that had just happened to him.

He slowly brought a hand to his head.

"... No... I'm fine..."


	20. Chapter 20

"Where should we go?" Mary asked.

"We can go to my room," Momo suggested.

_"... up...!"_

"Wait, do you guys hear that?" Ayano asked.

The girls stood silently to listen.

"Nope, what did you hear?" Hiyori asked.

"C'mon, let's just go to Momo's room. I'd rather not go back and have Haruka ask us that question again," Takane said.

They walked ahead and entered Momo's room while Ayano stayed for a while.

_I'm pretty sure that was Haruka...!_

"_Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!"_

_I knew it! What's going on down there..._

Ayano walked silently to the stairs and watched what was going on. She saw the boys murmuring something but couldn't quite hear and something caught her eye.

The boys were gathered around a piece of paper, but she couldn't tell what was written on it.

_...! No way! Is that...?!_ Ayano quickly took off her muffler and _... It's not here...!__ Then that means...! M-Maybe it's in my shirt!_

Ayano began to pat her clothes.

* * *

"A-Are you sure?" Seto asked Haruka worriedly.

"Y-Yeah..." Haruka faked a smile.

Seto's eyes glowed red. _I don't like doing this but, this really worries me!_

He meant to read his mind but another thought caught his attention.

'_...! No way! Is that...?!' _he knew that voice anywhere. '_... It's not here...!__ Then that means...!_ M-Maybe it's in my shirt!_'_

Seto quickly picked up the paper and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Seto? What are you doing?" Kano asked.

He put a finger against his lips and pointed behind him.

The others looked to the stairs to see Ayano patting her clothes.

_No... it's not here either...! Then they do...! _she looked back to see nothing in the middle of their circle.

_What?! But...!_

Kano caught her which was the last thing she needed.

"Oh! Ayano-nee!" Kano smiled.

"K-Kano!" Ayano faked a smile, and waved, "I decided to check on you guys! So... how are you doing?"

"Just talkin'!" Kano said.

"'K-Kay!" Ayano awkwardly laughed then walked away from the stairs. _M-Maybe I was just imagining that and left it at Shintaro's room... I'll search later... but..._ she paused in the same place before.

...

The boys sighed in relief when they couldn't hear footsteps anymore.

"Thanks, Kano," Seto said.

"Ugh, you know that I don't like to deceive Ayano-nee," Kano said, "Why did you want to hide it anyway?"

"I... I just don't want to skip to conclusions and none of us are even sure what's going on, you know?" Seto said.

"That's true, if we just asked Ayano a bunch of questions then she would definitely panic," Haruka said.

"Then now what, we can't even solve what heck that letter means!" Hibiya grumbled.

"Try thinking it in a different way!" Seto suggested while laying the paper out again.

They sat there, staring at the paper.

"Oh!" everyone turned to Haruka.

"Could it be '7332726372723473'?"


	21. Chapter 21

"Numbers?" Hibiya questioned.

Haruka took a pencil out of his bag and wrote down a number under each name.

"What? How did you even get these numbers?" Seto read the numbers again, still getting confused.

"'7332726372723473'... oh!" Kano realized something. "The Dan!"

"'The Dan'?" Hibiya asked.

"Oh, right, you don't know, it's like a little gang we made when you guys weren't here," Seto said.

"Oh, uh..." _I already know this, I'm just asking what about the Dan... But, it's weird, how does Shintaro know about Hiyori dying on August 15 over and over... Is the heat mocking me again?!_

"I'm pretty sure Shintaro meant to code it like this," Haruka said.

"Then what does the numbers mean?" Kano smirked.

"I-I'm... not... really sure..." Haruka smiled and sweated.

"Then we're stumped again," Hibiya sweated.

"GRR!"

The boys heard Mrs. Kisaragi frustrated to the point that she slammed the phone down onto the table and stomped to the kitchen.

"U-Uh, Mrs. Kisaragi!" Seto said quietly since he was scared of being yelled at by her, "You should put the phone on... the holder... you know..."

The room was quiet enough to hear a noisy cricket nearby, and the doctors still there sounding very confused as to why there wasn't a screaming lady on the other line anymore, soon hanging up with an awkward 'bye' and the phone beeping.

"That was pretty spineless!" Kano said while Seto sweated a bit, "I know Kano..."

"It doesn't look like she's coming back anytime soon..." Haruka said.

"Then I'll go put the phone back on the holder and someone kill that cricket!" Hibiya said while getting up. _I've heard that same cricket too many times!_

Hibiya walked to the phone and picked it up while looking for the holder.

The holder was on the wall, so high that Hibiya couldn't reach it.

Hibiya tried reaching for the holder with a stretched arm and on his toes, stretching trying to get up.

He was stuck there for a moment with the room, again, quiet enough to hear a noisy cricket.

"Pfft!"

"KANO SHUT UP!" Hibiya said in irritation.

"Amazing! You take after Shintaro!"

"GRR! WHY DOES THE HOLDER HAVE TO BE SO HIGH?!"

"This is getting no where..." Seto walked over to Hibiya. "Can I help?" he asked holding a hand out

Hibiya grumbled before standing regularly and putting the phone on Seto's hand.

Seto held and put it on the holder with no struggle. He stared at it for awhile while Hibiya sat down and got teased by Kano.

"Is something wrong?" Haruka asked.

"No, it's just that I wonder why home phones have letters on the buttons when home phones can't even send texts!" Seto smiled while sweating.

"That's true..." Haruka said.

"You guys are weird..." Hibiya sweated.

"Eh?! Well I can't really help it with the whole letters by numbers thing..." Seto rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh! Seto you genius!" Kano got up.

"Eh?"

* * *

"Jeez, Haruka's such an idiot..." Takane grumbled, again, while taking a sip of her fruit punch (they brought their fruit punch with them).

"Eh? But isn't Haruka your boyfriend?" Mary asked.

Takane spit-tanked, "EH?! THAT IDIOT?! MY BOYFRIEND?!"

"E-Eh?" Mary asked a bit scared while Takane kept screaming as many insults possible about Haruka, even though she was blushing as red as a tomato.

"She's in denial," Momo sweated while Kido nodded.

"Total tsundere!" Hiyori added.

"Neh, Momo, do you have any love interest? Like Takane-" Mary asked.

"HE'S NOT MY LOVE INTEREST!" Takane yelled while Mary covered her head afraid that Takane might hit her.

"Nah, not yet, Hiyori?" Momo turned to Hiyori.

"No, I'm just stuck with that idiot Hibiya..." Hiyori complained. "Mary?"

"Hm... no one really comes to mind..."

"What about Seto?" Kido asked.

"W-What?! No way! Seto's like my dear first friend or brother!" Mary blushed at the thought and grabbed a pillow to cover her face.

"What about you? You haven't talked much," Takane asked Kido once she got her tsundere level down.

"I don't plan on having a love interest at this age," Kido took a sip of her fruit punch.

"What about Shintaro?"

Now it was Kido's turn to spit-tank and blush as red as a tomato. "HAH?!"

"Or Seto, or Kano-"

"JEEZ MARY! BE QUIET!"

Kido took a deep breath to calm down.

"Seto and Kano are like brothers to me since we're pretty much family," Kido calmly said, "And Shintaro..."

"Y-Yeah... sorry..." Mary hugged the pillow tightly.

"N-No it's fine..." Kido said, "Besides, I think Ayano-nee took an interest on him, and I can't betray her, especially not now..."

"Speaking of Ayano, where is she?" Takane asked.

"Maybe she's still out in the hall," Momo said.


	22. Chapter 22

**So I literally haven't uploaded any of my fanfics for a while because I've been in a draw-y mood lately... got half a cover and comic done! =w=" (It's been at least a week and that's how much I've gotten done?)**

* * *

"What do you mean?" Seto asked.

"Quick! Bring the phone back!" Kano said.

Seto grabbed the phone and walked back to the group and handed it to Kano.

"You said letters right? And if you had one of those flip-phones you were stuck texting like this so wouldn't the numbers stand for the letters?" Kano suggested.

"For the first time Kano is on to something!" Hibiya said.

"We're still stumped though, there's 3 to 4 letters for each numbers, excluding 1 and 0," Haruka pointed out.

"Pfft, Kido, always left out..." Kano chuckled a bit.

"There's also Ayano-nee," Seto said and realized something, "Hey, do you think only Ayano-nee and Kido were supposed to know about _that_?"

"'That'?" Kano asked.

"You know, the snake...?" Seto almost whispered.

"Ooohh!" Kano said.

Hibiya and Haruka stared at them weirdly because they had no idea what they were talking about.

"N-Nothing!" Seto put his hands up defensively.

"Whatever!" Hibiya sighed.

"There's smaller handwriting above the names, except the writing is so small that they look like polygons," Haruka pointed to the smaller handwriting.

"Those are probably the same, just someone wrote it bigger so they could see it better," Seto said.

"Yeah, but the first three names are in red pen ink in the smaller version," Haruka pointed out.

"Then would the first word be 'red'?" Hibiya asked.

"Well, it does fit, the 7 has the letter 'r' and the 3 has the letter 'e' and 'd'," Kano pointed out while Haruka wrote down 'red'.

"Ayano-nee did have a thing for the color red," Seto said. "So does that mean Ayano-nee's the one who wrote the names larger?"

"Well, it does look like her handwriting, and she can't write that small," Kano said.

"That would mean Ayano's trying to figure out what Shintaro meant by the names," Haruka said.

"Um, so, what about the rest?" Hibiya asked.

...

*Chirp, chirp*

"Hey didn't anyone kill that cricket yet?"

"Bugs have feelings too!"

"Does anyone have more chips?"

"DON'T JUST AVOID MY QUESTION AND TRY TO GET US OFF TOPIC!"

"Truth be told, we don't know the rest!" the three said in unison.

"THEN AT LEAST TRY!"

* * *

_This is so wrong, but I need to figure out what Shintaro wants me to do since I have no clue!_ Ayano watched quietly as Hibiya kept yelling at them. _I wonder what's the rest, all they got was 'red'..._

"There you are!"

Ayano jolted when she heard Takane.

She slowly turned around, "H-Hey..."

"What are you doing out here?" Takane put her hands on her hips.

"W-Well I... heard the boys fighting so-"

"Jeez, who cares about them! Boys will be boys! Come on, we're watching a movie but we can't start if you're not there," Takane grabbed Ayano's wrist and dragged her over to Momo's room.

"B-But-!"

"No buts, they'll stop sooner or later. If not I'll beat it into them."

"Mmm..." Ayano anxiously said as she was forced to follow Takane into Momo's room.

* * *

"Come on! Just make a guess, any guess!" Hibiya said.

Kano opened his mouth to say something but Seto is a worry wart and can read minds, remember?

"No Kano, don't teach him _those_ kinds of things at this age," Seto said while Kano jolted and looked to his side.

"How about 'password'?" Haruka asked.

"That doesn't work, there's no '8'," Hibiya said.

"Aw, Hibiya, or Hiyori, is left out too!"

"Kano shut up."

"Eh, well I thought the numbers might be a password to something, but I guess not," Haruka said.

"Oh! How about 'crane'? That should be an obvious one since Ayano-nee loved making paper cranes!" Seto said.

"It fits! So that makes 'red crane'!" Hibiya said.

Haruka wrote down 'crane' on the paper.

"You seem pretty desperate to find out," Kano said.

"Oh shut up."

"Jeez! Everyone's so mean! Telling me to 'shut up', what is this, Smos-"

"Kano, focus."

"Right."

_Maybe, if I figure this out, I can find a way to save Hiyori..._

"What about 'paradise'?" Haruka suggested.

"'Paradise'? Where did you get that?" Hibiya asked.

"Well, these are all things Ayano like, right? So wouldn't these things be paradise to her?"

"I guess..." Hibiya was still confused, but went along with it.

"Letters fit," Kano said.

"We finally solved it," Haruka said while writing down 'paradise'.

"So, that makes 'red crane paradise'," Seto said.

...

*Chirp, chirp*

They fell backwards in unison.

"Great! More questions to solve!"


	23. Chapter 23

"This is waayyy too complicated!" Kano complained.

"What was Ayano and Shintaro thinking?!" Hibiya yelled while gripping his hair.

"I'm pretty sure that Ayano-nee is the one trying to solve it while Shintaro made this whole number mess..." Seto sweated.

"'Red crane paradise'...?" Haruka started thinking of different places.

"Guys, let's just forget about this!" Kano said.

"Forget about this?! I need to figure out what Shintaro is trying to do!" Hibiya yelled.

"'Need'? Is it getting to you that bad?" Seto asked.

"Uh- sure- why not!" Hibiya forgot that they don't remember Hiyori dying in the time loops.

Haruka didn't know any place with 'red cranes' or a 'paradise' for them until he thought about one place that might be it but immediately frowned at the idea of going to _that_ place.

"Hm? Is something wrong, Haruka?" Seto asked worriedly realizing that Haruka was now frowning and sitting in a loose fetal position.

"I thought about what place Shintaro might be talking about... but..." Haruka tightened his grip on his pants.

"'But'...?" Hibiya asked.

"You're not going to like the idea..."

"OH NO!" Kano stood up, and by telling the look on his face, disagreeing strongly with Haruka's idea, "THERE IS NO WAY ANY OF US ARE GOING BACK IN _THERE_!"

"'_There'_?" Hibiya asked.

Seto was confused at first but soon realized what place they were talking about. He covered his mouth and looked towards the ground, not wanting to tell Hibiya the place they were talking about.

Hibiya caught up with them and frowned at the idea. "Oh... _that_ place..."

* * *

"Jeez, Ayano, you missed out on a lot!" Momo grinned.

"Uh- what were you talking about?" Ayano switched her gaze to the hall but looked back to Momo once Takane closed the door.

"Like guys, do you have any guys on your mind?" Hiyori's eyes sparkled wanting to know who Ayano had her eyes on.

"Guys on my mind?" Ayano looked down remembering Shintaro.

"Ah! Did I bring something bad up?!" Hiyori immediately regretted bringing that up.

"Huh? Um- well- I'm wondering what the guys are doing down stairs!" Ayano sorta made up.

"I told you to forget about them! They can take care of themselves," Takane said.

"I know but..." Ayano sorta lied again, "D-Don't you think we're being a little rough on them?"

"That's true..." Mary murmured, "Maybe we should apologize for being so rough on them..."

"Ugh! This is ridiculous!" Takane yelled.

"We were over-reacting and been here for awhile too," Kido said.

"Well, since danchou says so..." Momo said while getting off of her bed and opening the door again.

"Dang it, why did I have to join the dan..." Takane murmured.

They walked out of Momo's room.

* * *

"Hey, I'll go," Hibiya decided while getting up.

"Eh?! Are you sure?!" Seto panicked over Hibiya being mentally stable when inside _his_ room.

"Yeah, since you guys saw what happened you'll get unwanted memories back if you entered, and since I didn't it wouldn't happen to me."

"O-Okay... if you say so..." Seto looked back down.

Hibiya took the paper, just in case, walked up the stairs, and through the second floor hallway looking for a door with a bobby pin in it's keyhole.

He found it.

He took a deep breath and slowly reached out his hand to grab the knob.

_"...anchou says so..." _he heard a door open.

_Crud! Auntie!_ he quickly opened the door, entered the room, and closed the door as quietly as possible.

Hibiya looked around the room.

The only abnormal things were the blood stains on his bed, and a decaying stench.

He started looking around the room, finding anything that might help. He realized that something sounded like it was trying to scratch through a cage and break free.

Hibiya realized that there was a rabbit in a cage by the nightstand and bed, and a piece of paper taped to the cage.

He took the piece of paper off and looked at the note.

_'Hey Hibiya, can you take care of Tono (the rabbit) for me until 8/15 2 years later and let him roam around for a bit in my room?_

_\- Shintaro'_

_Sure, why not..._ Hibiya looked towards the nightstand and found rabbit food and a bottle of water with a taped on label that said Tono.

Hibiya grabbed the bag and bottle and settled it on the ground and let out Tono.

Tono hopped out of her cage and onto Hibiya's lap.

He took the bowls out of her cage and poured in the food in one bowl and water in the other.

Tono hopped off and ate the food and drank the water.

Hibiya watched the rabbit hop around the room when he realized something about the letter.

He read the letter again.

_'Hey Hibiya, can you take care of Tono for me until 8/15 2 years later'?! Then that means he does know about the heat haze daze! And why did he write my name instead of something along the lines of, 'Whoever is reading this please take care of Tono'?!_

Hibiya soon heard Tono scratching the table that had a computer on it.

He walked over to the table and noticed that Tono was specifically scratching the drawer nearest to the ground (three drawers below the one Ayano opened).

Hibiya sat down, moved Tono, and opened the drawer she was scratching and noticed that there were multiple papers with the grade '100' that seemed to be lazily tossed in there.

Tono reached into the drawer and pulled a paper out by her mouth without denting it and putted it on the ground and kept doing that.

He realized that Tono was trying to get to the bottom of the drawer so he grabbed the entire stack and laid it on the ground and found an IPhone.

Hibiya looked to Tono only to find that she went back to her cage, sleeping.

_Do I unlock it?_ he thought while picking up the phone and turning it on and saw that it needed a password.

_It needs a password?! But I wouldn't know-! The paper!_ Hibiya grabbed the paper out of his pocket and typed the numbers and entered it and found out that the numbers were the password.

The phone opened and he saw that Shintaro saved a draft. He tapped on it and read the draft Shintaro saved.

...

...

...

"Tch..."

* * *

"Uh- hey guys..." Ayano said awkwardly and noticed that the paper was missing.

"Hey Ayano-nee, do you need something?" Kano asked.

"We came to apologize for over-reacting and ignoring you for awhile so... sorry," Kido said.

"It's okay, you guys didn't need to apologize," Seto smiled.

"Hey, where's that idiot?" Hiyori asked.

"You guys okay now?" Hibiya asked while coming down the stairs.

"Yeah, where were you?" Momo asked.

"Bathroom," Hibiya murmured while sitting down.

"Can we go home now? It's getting late," Takane murmured.

"Yeah, well, see you guys later!" Ayano said.


	24. Chapter 24

"Um- Ayano-nee?" Kido asked.

"M-hm?"

"Are you sure we should have moved without letting dad know?"

"Uh- don't worry about it, I left dad a note..." Ayano lied.

"Oh, are we going to visit him again?"

"... We shouldn't..." Ayano murmured.

"Why?"

"It's... sorta hard to answer right now, just trust me, okay?" Ayano forced a smile.

"Okay... if you say so..." Kido said.

"We're back!" Seto said while he and Kano entered the room with bags of groceries.

"Thanks you guys!" Ayano helped them by carrying a few of the bags and into the kitchen.

_Is Ayano-nee going through a phase...?_ Kido worried.

Kano felt his phone vibrating in his pocket while helping his siblings put the groceries in the refrigerator and cabinets. He took it out and saw that Hibiya had text him.

"I'm gonna go unpack my things in my room," Kano had lied again.

"Oh okay, I can help Ayano-nee with the rest of the grocerie-"

"How about you help me with my bed!" Kano grabbed Seto's wrist, "But didn't you already-?!"

He dragged him out of the kitchen and into his room and locked the door.

Ayano blinked a couple of times once her brothers left suddenly.

"What was that about?" Seto asked.

"Hibiya texted me."

"You exchanged numbers?"

"Before we left Kisaragi's house we did so so we can talk about the letter, you know?" Kano read Hibiya's message while Seto leaned in so he could see too.

Kano: 'Sup! So did you find anything in his room that might help?

Hibiya: No. I didn't find any 'paper cranes' that had messages and the computer didn't help either.

"Wait, don't you need a password for it?" Seto asked.

Kano sent a text to Hibiya about what Seto said and got a text from Hibiya after a few seconds.

Kano: Seto asked about the password to the computer.

Hibiya: I thought the numbers on the paper might be the password but it wasn't, turns out it was soda.

"'Soda'?" Seto sweated while Kano sent another text and got another reply from Hibiya.

Kano: Did you find anything on the computer?

Hibiya: No, he doesn't have any documents or anything in the recycle bin.

"So nothing huh?" Kano sighed.

"Does that mean it was never a code in the first place?" Seto asked.

"Who knows, we're talking about a genius here," Kano plopped down onto his bed.

"Yeah, all of what happened yesterday could have mean something or we're just thinking too hard," Seto said.

"'Thinking too hard'? Dude, Ayano-nee and Shintaro were discussing about the 'unbeatable heat' and there has to be a meaning, and why else would he put our names in that specific order?" Kano turns off his phone while saying that.

"Do you think we should confront Ayano-nee?" Seto asked.

"Who knows anymore..." Kano said while rolling onto his side.

* * *

"Thank you so much for coming," Mrs. Enomoto said while Haruka took his shoes off to enter the house.

"It's no problem, so what happened to Takane?" Haruka asked with his usual smile.

"She hasn't come out of her room since yesterday, I can't figure out why..." Mrs. Enomoto said worriedly.

"Yesterday...?" Haruka slowly frowned.

"So something did happen?" Mrs. Enomoto noticed that the usual happy boy was now frowning slightly.

"Our friend... he committed suicide yesterday by stabbing a long pair of red scissors into his throat..." Haruka said while lightly holding his throat.

"Our other friends, Takane, and I came over to his house to see him rotting on his bed like that..." Haruka almost whispered.

"Oh my!" Mrs. Enomoto gasped, "I'm dearly sorry about your friend..."

"I'll go and try to get Takane out of her room," Haruka forced a smile.

"Oh- well, her room is upstairs and the room farthest from the stairs on the right."

Haruka walked upstairs and walked through the hall just as Mrs. Enomoto directed.

He reached a room that had the door locked so he knocked on it.

"Takane?" Haruka asked.

"... Haruka...?" he heard fairly faintly.

The door slowly creaked open just enough so he could only see the left side of her face.

"Why don't you come out?" Haruka asked.

"I don't want to..."

"Is it because...?"

"Yeah... I just... don't understand... Why..."

"I'm pretty sure everyone else doesn't understand either and that they're confused, but, we're still moving on, that's all we can do, move forward, okay?" Haruka smiled softly.

Takane groaned a bit while opening the door just enough for her to slide out.

"Come on, how about we go get something to eat?" Haruka asked.

"I guess..." Takane murmured.

"But you better not order everything off the menu again!"

"Eh?!"

* * *

"Hey, how long are we staying here again?" Hiyori asked while laying on the couch and throwing a ball up and catching it and doing it repetitively.

"At least 2 years," Hibiya said.

"Your parents actually let you stay here for 2 years knowing that's it's only 'for summer school'?" Hiyori asked.

"Didn't you do the same?"

"Yeah, no school for 2 years huh? This will be nice!" Hiyori said.

"Yeah, but what are we supposed to do here for 2 years?" Hibiya asked.

"Hang out with the others?"

"But they have school too."

"Ah, if only I had a cool cousin that looks like a game character that was here instead of an idiot!"

"Hey! What is that supposed to mean?!"

"Alright!" Kenjirou held a packet full of paperwork and putted it on the table, "Time for home-school!"

"EH?!" Hibiya and Hiyori complained.

"B-But uncle-!" Hiyori sat up letting the ball fall onto her head.

"Your parents said that they wanted you guys to be home-schooled while you're here!"

"Papa and mama are no fun!" Hiyori pouted.

* * *

"Hey little guy where on earth are you from?" Mary asked while reaching out of her window to pet a small blue jay that was singing on a branch.

The blue jay lets Mary pet it for a moment then flew off to meet up with it's flock.

"The day is so nice, but..." after all that happened yesterday she just couldn't focus on her book, the only thing that caught her attention was the blue jay that was singing a lovely tune.

"I wonder... what will happen in the future?"


	25. Chapter 25

**I know that the news about Robin Williams is sad and I'm sorry for bringing it up if it's a really sensitive subject for you, but has anyone noticed that he died on the same week as August 15?... O_o**

**Also, so much copy and pasting!**

* * *

Ayano woke up, it has been 2 years since Shintaro had done suicide.

Everything that happened during the two years was different.

"Ayano! Ready to go to school yet?" Takane knocked on her bedroom door.

"Just a minute!" Ayano yelled.

She got up from her bed and sat on the chair near her mirror. She took the brush from her stand and started brushing her hair.

_Takane and Haruka got into college, Haruka taking an art college and Takane taking a gaming college where they work on new games..._ Ayano puts the brush down and clips on her two red hair clips.

"Okay, I'm ready!" Ayano said while opening the door and entering the living room.

"Took you long enough! Haruka already brought Kido, Seto, and Kano to school!" Takane said.

Even though she was in college, Takane still wore her high school uniform.

"Alright, let's go," Ayano said.

* * *

_August 15..._ Hibiya sighed as he swung on the swing.

"Is something wrong?" Hiyori asked while petting that same black cat.

"No, nothing..." Hibiya remembered what the text said. He checked his phone- 12:29 p.m.

"Is that so?" Hiyori said.

"Oh, Shintaro left a note saying that someone needs to feed his bunny," Hibiya puts his phone in his pocket once the 29 changed to 30.

Hibiya got up and ran out of the park.

_Eh...?_ Hiyori realized what was going to happen next _He's... he's going to die again!_

Hiyori chased after Hibiya, letting the cat go.

She ran quicker once she saw him standing in the middle of the road.

_No...!_ Hiyori grabbed Hibiya's wrist and flung him out of the truck's way and let it hit her.

* * *

Ayano woke up and realized something.

_Has it begun...?_

"Ayano! Ready to go to school yet?" Takane knocked on her bedroom door.

"Just a minute!" Ayano yelled again.

_It has...!_

* * *

_Tch, failed, this might take awhile... _Hibiya grumbled a bit.

"Is something wrong?" Hiyori asked while petting that same black cat.

"No, nothing..." Hibiya remembered what the text said. He checked his phone- 12:29 p.m.

"Is that so?" Hiyori said.

"You know, I don't really like the summer time," Hiyori murmured.

"Me too."

The black cat then jumped off of Hiyori's lap and went to the road.

"I'll go get it," Hibiya jumped off the swing and ran after the cat.

_Eh...?_ Hiyori realized what was going to happen next _He's... he's going to die again!_

She finally reached the road side where Hibiya was and ran ahead of him so the truck would hit her.

* * *

Ayano woke up yet again.

_How many times will this continue? _she thought as Takane was knocking yet again on her door.

* * *

_55 times this has happened, I need to go quicker..._

"Is something wrong?" Hiyori asked while petting that same black cat.

"No, nothing..." Hibiya remembered what the text said. He checked his phone- 12:29 p.m.

"Is that so?" Hiyori said.

"You know, I don't really like the summer time," Hiyori murmured.

"Me too."

"Hey, can you feed Shintaro's bunny after this?" Hibiya asked.

"He has a bunny? Sure, I guess..." Hiyori said.

The black cat then jumped off of Hiyori's lap and went to the road.

"I'll go get the cat," Hiyori ran after the cat before Hibiya could say that.

Once she reached the middle of the road Hibiya reached her and pulled her out of the truck's way, letting the truck hit himself.

Red flew everywhere.

"I... I failed yet again...!" Hiyori cried as everything went black.

* * *

Hiyori woke up and looked at her surroundings.

She didn't know where she was.

She looked for a clock and found a clock on the wall near the top of the door.

_9:20? Has the day begun again?_ Hiyori looked at the surroundings a bit more.

It was a fairly plain room, green walls for the door and behind the bed, and yellow walls on her left and right, and a carpet floor with a desk near the closet and what seemed like a notebook on it.

The bed she was in had a white mattress along with a white pillow and a yellow blanket.

"Hm? Are you awake?"

She looked to the door and saw Haruka at the door.

He had a bunch of bagged snacks in his arms and a small trail of bagged snacks behind him.

"Haruka...?" Hiyori almost murmured.

"Ye-huh?" Haruka hummed while setting the snacks onto the desk and retrieving the snacks outside of his room and closed the door.

"Where am I?" Hiyori asked.

"My room," Haruka opened a bag of potato chips and started eating the chips.

"What... day is it...?" Hiyori hesitantly asked.

"August 15, it's night time by now," Haruka said.

"Night... time...?" Hiyori's eyes widened.

"Yeah, man, you surprised me! You were lying on the road side when I was coming home from college!" Haruka said while finishing the the bag of chips and opening a bag of pretzels.

"Fainted...?!" Hiyori tightened her grip on the blanket.

"Nobody came to pick you up so I brought you back to my house, I was guessing you were sleepy, you know?" Haruka threw a pretzel in his mouth.

"What... what about Hibiya?!" Hiyori asked.

"Hibiya? He was with you?"

Hiyori could feel her world coming down.

"Is Hibiya... _dead_... _forever_...?!"


	26. Chapter 26

"Is something wrong?" Haruka asked worriedly.

"A-Are you sure you didn't see him?!" Hiyori asked again.

"No, was he with you?" Haruka asked.

_I can't believe it! I... I really did fail!_ tears began to fall down Hiyori's cheeks.

"Did something happen to Hibiya?" Haruka asked.

"He... he...!" Hiyori said between sobs.

"Hiyori..." Haruka worried.

"Hibiya died...!"

* * *

"I'm home!"

Momo opened the door to see that it was empty, just like the past two years.

"..." Momo just stared blankly into the living room.

She was about to put her shoes where she usually puts it when she saw Shintaro's slippers that seemed to be tossed there.

_Mom was probably in a rush again and accidentally kicked onii-chan's slippers..._ Momo thought as she puts her brother's slippers in the right place and puts her shoes there.

Momo puts on her slippers as she lazily tosses her bag onto the floor and goes to the fridge.

_The soda is still here, even though it's expired_ Momo noves the soda box out of the way to get a juice box.

_Can't afford to throw it away though_... Momo sipped the juice box when suddenly the door slams open.

"Robbers?!" Momo ran to the entrance way to find Haruka, with the key, and Hiyori.

"Haruka?! Hiyori?!" Momo yelled.

"H-Hibiya...!" Haruka said while hyperventilating.

"W-What about Hibiya?" Momo asked, widening her eyes in fright.

"H-He was hit by a truck!" Hiyori said.

"Eh...?" the juice box slipped out of Momo's hand and it met with the floor.

* * *

"What do you mean he's dead?!" Kido slammed her hands onto the table.

"C-Calm down, Kido," Ayano nervously said.

"But this case is just like Shintaro's!" Kido yelled to her sister.

"Hibiya..." Mary cried.

"I didn't see his body though..." Haruka said.

"That's what I meant! Just like-!" Kido was then held back by Seto by covering her mouth and holding her arms down, making it look like a suffocating hug.

"Kido! Don't yell anymore!" Seto said while struggling to keep her still.

"Just what is going on with that jerk and Hibiya?!" Takane murmured in frustration.

_Did Hibiya lie in the text?_ Kano thought, _it could be possible..._

"Why does this have to happen again after two years?!" Momo cried.

Hiyori watched her friends crying or yelling in agony from the background, and sat there quietly.

_Yeah... why did this happen again after two years? I just don't understand..._ Hiyori groaned as she fell back onto the couch.

_What happened to everyone smiling just like back then? _Hiyori slowly slid down the couch until her head was bent at an awkward angle.

_Right, I still need to find that paper but I don't know where it went..._ Ayano thought.

_How could I be so clumsy to just drop it and let the boys just take it away!_ Ayano mentally scolded herself.

Of course, Seto can hear all of this and that led to Kido breaking free and punching Kano by accident.

"Ow! Kido what was that for?! I didn't even tease you!" Kano said.

"Ah, sorry! I was struggling and once Seto lost his grip I still struggled and somehow punched you by accident..." Kido scratched the back of her head.

"Dude, is something wrong?" Kano asked Seto.

"Um, I think we have something you need, Ayano-nee..." Seto said only loud enough for the siblings to hear.

"You stole from Ayano-nee?" Kido asked, surprised that he would do something like that.

"No! Not at all!... I think, well it just sorta fell so..." Seto scratched the back of his head.

"We just found it on the ground, to put it simply," Kano sighed.

"Wah...!" Ayano realized what the boys were talking about and slowly smiled, "Thanks, Seto, Kano."

Obviously Kido had completely no idea what they were talking about and felt left out.

"Ah, sorry, you should probably hear in on this secret too," Ayano said.

"Finally," Kido sighed.

"And include me sooner, I was feeling left out..." she quickly added while murmuring.

"Hm?"

"Nothing!"

"I have something to tell to you too," Ayano sweated and averted her eyes, "I _might_ have been eavesdropping on your discussion during the whole girls separate from guys crisis..."

"Oh, sweet, that saves a lot of time on explaining," Kano said.

"It doesn't for me!" Kido yelled feeling like they forgot her again.

"Oh, right..." Kano sweated.


	27. Chapter 27

"Eh... I see..." Kido murmured.

"It's like a giant riddle, huh?" Ayano said.

"Yeah, but is all of this coding and all that other stuff really necessary?" Kano sighed.

"Maybe he only wants certain people to find out," Seto said.

"Certain people, huh?" Ayano murmured and realized something.

_Could it be he doesn't want him to find out?! _Ayano realized.

"KYAAH!"

"Mary?!" the siblings turned to see the little white haired girl trying to run away from a black snake.

"A black snake?! How did it get into the hideout?!" Kido shrieked too.

"I don't know! Just get the freaking thing out!" Takane yelled.

_I thought so... _Ayano thought as Seto chased the black snake, trying to get it out of the hideout.

"M-Mary, are you okay?!" Momo asked as the white haired girl was hyperventilating.

"I-I think..." Mary said between breaths.

"I'm going out to buy some snacks," Haruka said as he got up.

"Are you that hungry?" Takane asked.

"Yeah, also I thought some snacks could cheer everyone up," Haruka smiled.

"Just don't drop any crumbs!" Kido said as Haruka walked over to the door.

"A-re~? Are you afraid that the snake might come back?" Kano smirked, then got punched in the face (on purpose this time) as Haruka closed the door.

Haruka sighed as he leaned on the door and slid down.

"Can you be quiet?" Haruka asked.

**"Eh? Why do you never listen to me, then?"**

"'Cause I know you're wrong."

**"Are you in denial still? Can't you just face the fact that you've ****_killed_**** your friends before?"**

"Shut up!" Haruka yelled as he covered his ears again, thinking it would stop the voice.

"There's no way I'd ever do that! If I've killed them than why are they still here?!"

**"Kagerou days sound familiar?"**

"No! Not at all!"

**"Didn't you have a stupid goal or something? What was it... 'I'll save the boy and the girl'?"**

"No, I don't remember any of it..."

**"Our minds are different but that still doesn't change the fact that you killed them with your hands."**

"I'm tired, can't you just leave my head already?"

**"What? But I need to know how this tragedy will end, or what Shin-whatever's stupid little plan is. Ugh, this would just be a lot easier if you had just eavesdropped on those foolish man's kids!"**

"You mean Ayano and her siblings? No way! Why would I listen to you and why would I even do that?!"

**"Ugh, this route is so stupid and painful! I don't get a body, the owner of the body is too stubborn, and not to mention I can't grant any stupid freaking wishes! You know what? Screw you! I'm just going to find another body!"**

Haruka waited for a moment until he heard completely nothing, and sighed.

"Glad to get that out of my mind," Haruka murmured to himself as he got up and walked to a market nearby.

The siblings waited for the girls to start another conversation that way they could keep their's hidden.

"'Red crane paradise' was what you guys got?" Ayano asked as she looked at the paper.

"What the heck is that suppose to mean?" Kido asked.

"We have no clue!" Kano shrugged, "That's why we came out and told you, right?"

"Technically I did, but yeah," Seto sweated.

"A paradise? Hm..." Ayano thought for a while.

"By paradise, could he mean a place filled with cranes?" Kido asked.

"If that's so, I guess we could assume that he's talking about paper cranes that are made of red material, right?" Seto asked.

"Oh! That's good!" Kano said.

"Then a place filled with paper cranes made out of red material..." Ayano re-worded.

"Then, Ayano-nee's room?" Seto asked.

The younger siblings looked towards their older sister.

"Um... I think it's somewhere else...?" Ayano awkwardly laughed since she didn't want her room to be a mess since she just cleaned it.

"Eh? Somewhere else? But there's no other place that's filled with paper cranes that we know of!" Kano pouted.

"Well Shintaro is probably not talking about a place outside of the city so..." Seto thought for a moment.

"...!" Ayano remembered a place.

"Guys! I think he's talking about the elementary school we went to!" Ayano said.

"But hasn't it shut down?" Kido asked.

"Exactly!" Ayano exclaimed.

"Eh?" the younger siblings blinked a couple of times in a clueless way at their sister.

"Seto!"

"Er- yes?"

"Didn't you say he might only want certain people to find out about this?"

"Um- yes."

"What better place than an abandoned building!" Ayano pointed out.

"Oh..." the three said in unison now that they got what their sister was talking about.

"Well? C'mon!" Ayano said while getting up and running to exit the hideout.

"Ah! Wait!" Seto yelled as the three got up and followed their sister.

"What was that all about?" Takane asked as the door shut.

"Who knows," Hiyori huffed.

"Maybe we shouldn't have left them out," Mary said.

"Eh, less snacks for them," Momo shrugged.


	28. Chapter 28

**Just to let you know, in chapter 5, Shintaro and Ayano were still in elementary school, so they're going back there.**

* * *

"Ayano-nee, can you climb over the fence?" Kido asked while sitting on the rim of the fence as Kano and Seto jumping down on the other side of the "don't enter" fence.

"Uh-um..." Ayano played around with the rim of her skirt.

"Is something wrong, Ayano-nee?" Kano asked.

Kido sat there, thinking for a bit, then got a light-bulb. She jumped down to the same side that Kano and Seto were on.

"Ayano-nee, on the count of three, climb over the fence the fence as fast as you can," Kido said.

Seto and Kano looked at each other, clueless on what Kido was about to do on 3.

"1...!"

She puts a hand on the fence.

"2...!"

She puts a foot on the fence.

"3!"

Kido turns around quickly, raised both of her hands in a peace sign, and-

*DOUBLE-DOUBLE EYE STAB!*

"OOOOWWWW!"

* * *

Haruka stopped once he exited the market.

"What was that?" Haruka asked.

* * *

"OW! Kido! Why did you do that?!" Kano yelled while holding his eyes in pain as Ayano jumped down from the fence.

"I don't trust you," Kido huffed.

"Then why me too?" Seto sweated as he blinked his eyes in pain.

"You can read minds and by putting you in pain you won't read minds."

"You do know that I barely do it by will unless if I lose control right?!" Seto sweated more.

"No exception!" Kido stated as she walked ahead.

* * *

"That idiot is taking his time," Takane murmured as she got up.

"I'm gonna go check on him before he buys too many snacks," Takane says as she walks off.

"Ah! Lemme come too!" Momo said as she went after Takane.

*Ka-chack*

"Well, I guess it's just you and me then," Mary smiled at Hiyori but then realized Hiyori was in a somewhat grumpy mood.

"Hiyori?" Mary asked.

"Maybe I should go with them..." Hiyori murmurs.

"E-Eh?! You're leaving me too?!" Mary panicked.

"No! That's not the thing!" Hiyori said.

"It's just after the whole Hibiya incident I'm worried about them..." Hiyori murmurs.

Mary blinks a bit before sitting back.

"Me too, let's just watch the television for now..." Mary says as she gets the remote and turns on the television.

* * *

Ayano tried opening the door but it was locked as expected though.

"What should we do?" Seto asked.

"Guys, I got this," Kido said as she took a bobby pin from her hair and puts it in the keyhole and twists it around for a bit until it made a 'click' sound.

Kido suddenly stopped when she remembered about opening the door and seeing Shintaro.

"Kido...?" Ayano asked which made Kido snap back to reality.

"S-Sorry, zoned out for a bit..." Kido murmured as she opens the door while taking out her bobby pin.

The siblings walked around the empty hall until they found the classroom.

Ayano slid open the door and went inside followed by her siblings.

She walked around the small desks until she found Shintaro's desk which was in the back of the classroom.

"This it?" Kano asked.

"M-hm," Ayano pulled the desk open to see that the inside was flooded with a diversity of paper cranes.

Small ones, big one, normal ones, white ones, red ones, new ones, old ones even a couple of sticky notes that had no particular message on them, some of them even had random emoticons! \\(OAO)/

The siblings stared at it with a few hair strands sticking up.

_Was this what he did once he figured out how to fold a paper crane by unfolding mine?! _Ayano gaped.

"Um... now what do we do...?" Seto murmured.

"Read the ones we can get to...?" Kido said, unsure if one day was even enough to read all of them.

"Uh... Ayano-nee...?" Kano turned to his sister only to see her like this: orz.

"Why Shintaro... why?!" Ayano murmured.

"Uh, we should probably start now if we want to get this done with," Seto sweated as he picked up a fairly old (paper slightly yellow and dusty) crane and unfolded it.

_EH?! _Seto sweated even more at the ":P" that Shintaro had put on the paper he unfolded.

Kano picked up a white one which seemed fairly new and unfolded it to see that it was just a folded up homework sheet that had the name Tateyama Ayano at the top with the score .05% at the corner of the paper.

Kano stared at the score in a dumbfounded way to see that his sister somehow got 1/20 of a score on her homework.

Kido unfolded a crane made out of red tissue paper to see that, well, there was nothing written on it.

". . . wut?"


	29. Chapter 29

**THIS IS IMPORTANT PLEASE READ**

**So I plan on drawing all of my fanfics into comics... yeah, not going to happen all at once =w=" I'm going to be busy with school and stuff in the future so of course I can't draw all of my comics in those periods of time, so, I decided to do a poll.**

**On the poll you can vote for which one of my fanfics I should draw next and the poll will end on the beginning of December along with me posting the first few pages on Christmas (consider the first pages a Christmas gift).**

**...**

**Well, technically, the poll doesn't end there with only one out of all of my fanfics drawn. I plan to draw all of my fanfics so, once I get the beginning of my fanfic drawn and posted the choice on the poll for that specific fanfic will be deleted since it's already done, and the poll will begin again on New Years or beginning of February excluding that fanfic choice, that way I can finish drawing my fanfics.**

**Confused? Example: Let's say this fanfic was voted the most and I close the poll at the beginning of December and I posted the first few pages on Christmas, then, when I start this poll again, this fanfic is no longer a choice, but when it's no longer a choice it doesn't mean it won't be updated as a comic anymore.**

**Eventually it will build up, I think, but hey, it helps.**

**Why am I doing this?  
Because starting to draw all of them at once is not going to help my schedule, so I'm doing it one by one.**

**Where can you find my comics?  
I have a deviantart account which is PandaLover1358, also, I do have a link directly to my account in my profile.**

**The poll isn't on my profile!  
... Crap, I don't know how to answer that, this is my very first poll ever, so there's bound to be something bad happening. (But if it does work please do tell me)**

**Have any more questions?  
Just PM me or leave a review asking about it.**

**And let's finally get this chapter going! (Thank you for reading) =w="**

* * *

"Stupid Shintaro!" Kido crumpled up the paper and threw it at the window which bounced off and lightly bounced onto Ayano.

"Just keep looking," Seto sweated, trying to keep their spirits up.

"Yeah, we're bound to get something," Kano said.

"Shut up! I know this!" Kido said as she took another crane.

"A-re?" Ayano sat down and unfolded the crumpled up piece of paper Kido threw.

"Nothing?" Ayano raised a brow, but then noticed something was written when half of the paper was near the sunlight.

"Guys!" Ayano scooted into the sunlight while her siblings sat beside her.

"Oh! He wrote it in red marker! That's why I couldn't see anything!" Kido said.

In the sunlight, the tissue paper was see through but of course the red marker ink wasn't.

"'You need to do this if you messed up'..." Kano read the first line.

"'Messed up'?" Seto asked.

"'If you guys (Seto and Kano) told Haruka and Haruka is acting weird then you f-ed up, idiots'..." Kano said.

The 4 had a late reaction.

"Aw, crap."

"'Also, if the sun is setting, you need to hurry up to fix this mess'," Kano said.

The 4 looked to the window to see the sun setting.

"We're really messing this up!" Seto yelled.

"Hurry up and read the rest!" Kido yelled.

"Okay, okay! Um, 'if everyone except Mary is outside then you need to hurry up and make sure they get back to the base before they all get killed' is all he said left!" Kano yelled.

"Then what the heck are we doing?! Let's go!" Ayano yelled as she threw the paper in the desk and closed it as she ran along with her siblings.

* * *

"There you are!" Takane yelled from across the road to get Haruka's attention.

"Hurry up! The sun is setting! It's going to be hard to see at night if you don't!" Momo yelled too.

"Okay!" Haruka yelled with a smile as he walked across the road to meet up with them.

Takane walked over to pinch Haruka on the cheek.

"What do you think you're doing?! You're suppose to look both sides before crossing!" Takane scolded.

"I'm sorry!" Haruka apologized.

"Takane! That's even more dangerous!" Momo said as she went to go retrieve the two.

* * *

"You know, I'm really worried, I'll go get them!" Hiyori said as she was about to walk out.

"Then I'll come too!" Mary said.

"No, stay here where it's safe, okay?" Hiyori didn't wait for an answer as she walked out of the hideout.

Mary followed without Hiyori knowing though.

* * *

"Are you guys idiots?!"

The three turned to see the siblings running over to them.

"Kido's right! Don't stand in the middle of the road!" Kano yelled.

"Why don't you tell this idiot that!" Takane yelled.

"But you're practically doing the same thing," Seto sweated.

"Shut up!" Takane yelled.

The 4 went over to get them out of the road but Takane fought back, being stubborn and stuff.

Hiyori kept running until she found the rest of them and a truck charging straight ahead.

She ran over and tried pulling one of them onto the streets, which was Momo. With her small stature though, she couldn't do anything and soon everything went black.

Mary watched as blood went everywhere with wide eyes after the sun had set and it was now night time.

"N-No way..." Mary started crying.

A black snake then came and climbed onto Mary's shoulder.

"No... I don't want this day to end...!" Mary cried.

**"Then let your monstrous powers loose and reset the actors on stage!"**

Mary kept crying as her friends' powers went to her and her hair was cut off with the tips tainted with black and gaining scales on her cheeks.

"I want my friends back!"


	30. Chapter 30

Hey... I guess, well, I'm probably dead by the time you're reading this and assuming why you're reading this is either Seto and Kano:

A. They told you

B. They told you and Haruka (a.k.a. you idiots messed up)

Or C. You found the note yourself

I'm also going to assume that this is Hibiya. So lots of crazy things have probably happened up until this point. Really, I think this is a no-brain-er. I'm just going to take guesses here:

Ayano is probably confused and trying to solve what the f is going on, Kido probably has trauma, Seto is probably holding back his feelings that way he can help everyone else can help, Kano probably barely deceives anyone anymore, Mary is probably trying to cheer Momo up, Momo is probably lonely, Takane... is probably Takane still, Hiyori... same goes for her and giving you a hard time still, and Haruka... well it really depends on if you guys told him or not.

Well, if you guys did tell Haruka... crap, I don't know, don't tell him anymore? Wait until August 15th? To put it simply, if you did and he's acting weird, then you guys f-ed up.

Just, when it's August 15th I'll tell you this, it'll probably return to _that _day, not August 14th since I'm messing with the whole unbeatable-heat-system-thing.

Yeah, this is a whole plan thing and blah, blah, blah.

Now, when it's two years later on August 15th I need you to make sure Hiyori doesn't "die" and you do it instead, not like you've done it before. Then again, you don't remember when you died when time repeats again. But seriously, make sure to do this and "no" is not an option since you know that one of you two are fated to "die" on that fateful day.

The plan should go out smoothly, but again, if you did tell him, you f-ed up, I cannot emphasize that anymore.

If you mess up and time repeats and if Seto and Kano _do _get their hands on the note and/or get told by Ayano and Kido make an excuse and drag Haruka out before anymore information is spilled.

Then again, the first time would mean _he _already knows about it and if you repeat... ugh, just make sure no more information reaches him.

I would tell the others about my plan, but let's face it, the dan is just full of (should I even put it nicely?) idiots. For 1, Ayano is not the smartest person I know, maybe smarter than Momo, but seriously, I know that she somehow got .05% on one of her homework assignment. 2, same goes for Momo. 3, Seto is a worrywart and if I were to tell him then he would probably panic whenever he's talking with Haruka. 4, Takane would probably not trust me and blabber her mouth off to Haruka on how much of a jerk I am. 5, Haruka probably still has _him _and that would just mess up my entire plan.

And now, here I am, telling a freaking 10-12 year old who was leaded by a rabbit and somehow smarter than the other teenagers here in a freaking text. (I know I'm over-exaggerating but this group has some bright moments and other times it's just face-palms from disbelief on how we came together).

I swear, this is definitely not how I planned this out to be.

Anyways, getting back to my plans, when you're finished reading this extremely long text and going outside, do NOT tell a single soul about this.

If the guys ask about what you found just say you found nothing.

If they constantly ask say something about the computer only having the password soda (don't judge) and nothing saved there and nothing in the recycle bin and tell them that there's probably no code to the note.

Only Ayano (her siblings too as long as they don't tell anyone else), and of course you, are allowed to know about the note.


	31. Chapter 31

**I got my first 100 on a test in algebra and it was written in red ink. My reaction: . . . MEIN GOTT!**

**Also, uh, sorry akaoisora... and probably most of the other readers...**

* * *

Ayano woke up and quickly sat up in her bed, sweating a lot.

"Wh... what happened...?!" Ayano was shaking.

She picked up her phone and looked at the date.

"Today is _that_ day...!" Ayano gasped.

"Ayano-nee, if you get up you'll be late for school," Kano said from outside of her door.

"I-I'm getting ready!" Ayano stuttered.

_He's right... if I don't hurry up then...! _Ayano widened her eyes, remembering Shintaro's limp body.

"No..." Ayano was determined this time.

"I'll save everyone this time!"

* * *

"Shtudy at your houshe?" Haruka asked with negima in his mouth.

"Yeah, since the librarian pretty much hates Takane and they still need to study," Shintaro said.

"Can't we go somewhere other than your house?" Takane huffed.

"Unless you want to be hated by more librarians," Shintaro said and Takane jolted.

"Aaahhh! Fine!" Takane yelled while sweating.

"It would be fun to see your house~!" Haruka smiled.

"What about Ayano?" Takane asked.

"What about what?" Ayano smiled as she entered the room.

"Studying together at Shintaro's house!" Haruka exclaimed.

"Eh, sounds like fun!" Ayano agreed.

"..." Shintaro walked out of the room silently.

"Oi! Jerk! You're not gonna greet Ayano?!" Takane yelled.

"It's fine he's probably busy with something," Ayano assured.

"With what? Being a jerk?" Takane grumbled.

"Wait, he didn't tell us his address," Haruka realized.

"That freaking jerk...!" Takane grumbled more.

"Say, what time is it?" Ayano asked.

"Let's see..." Haruka turned to the clock in the room, "Everyone is probably out of their school at this time now."

"I think we should go now," Ayano said as she grabbed their wrists and dragged them out with them quickly taking their bags before being forced to leave.

"We can walk ourselves, you know?!" Takane yelled as they were dragged down the hallways.

"We need to hurry!" Ayano said urgently while walking quicker to the point of running.

"Why?" Haruka asked.

Ayano gritted her teeth not knowing whether to answer or not and slowly stopped and letting go the two of them. She turned to them with her scarf swiveling with her.

"Shintaro is going to die today if we don't reach his house soon."

* * *

"Hah?! What do you mean Shintaro's going to die today?!" Kido yelled in disbelief as she ran with them.

"As in he's going to commit suicide today!" Ayano yelled.

"But why would Shintaro do that?!" Mary asked as she held onto Seto tightly.

"I... I don't know..." Ayano said.

"Everyone?" Momo turned around asked after she walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.

Ayano quickly lifted up the carpet and grabbed the keys.

"How did you know about that?!" Momo jolted.

"No time to explain!" Ayano quickly pushed and twisted the key into the keyhole and slammed open the door.

Before they entered the house Ayano quickly grabbed a bobby pin out of Kido's hair, who winced. They then ran up the stairs and Ayano did the same thing she did with the key to the bobby pin in Shintaro's door.

Once the door was slammed open only one word could describe what they had saw- horror.

Everyone there had saw Shintaro drive a pair of red scissors into his throat and blood spewing into the air.

"Wha...!" Takane gasped before charging into the room along with the others leaving Ayano at the door.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT?!" Takane yelled and gripped the scissors, trying to pull the scissors out.

"Shintaro! What's wrong?!" Haruka yelled as he held Shintaro from behind so it would be easier to pull the scissors out.

Takane kept pulling but Shintaro's grip on the scissors was really tight.

"SHINTARO LET GO OF THE SCISSORS!" Takane yelled as tears started flowing down her cheeks.

Shintaro's mind, sight, and hearing was starting to blur here and there, with everyone in that room shouting unclear words or his name at him to the blurry faces of everyone's crying faces.

Everyone stopped when they heard a raspy sigh and looked at Shintaro.

"You... guys... are-so... annoy... ing..."

"Mas... ter...?" Takane widened her eyes as she looked up and saw Shintaro looking down at her.

Haruka's and Takane's hands released a bit when she saw Shintaro sticking his tongue at her and he slowly slipped through and fell limp onto the floor.

Everyone was thrown into hysteria.

Ayano watched everyone from the doorway and could feel her legs shake and go weak. She fell down onto her knees and gripped her skirt tightly yet shakily.

_I... I failed again...! _tears dripped down her chin and onto her skirt.

_I'm sorry... I can't be everyone's hero...!_


	32. Chapter 32

**It's been so long since I updated anything! (/OAO)/**

**You do not realize how crazy January was because school is crazy once first semester is done. Also because I got Alpha Sapphire in the end of December because Hoenn is my childhood and it is so awesome to see everything again (I also just realized that Hoenn is practically a dating sim/ otome game if you pick the female protagonist =w=").**

**Also, writer's block is a pain. I wanted to update this but I had no idea what to put on this chapter for an extremely long time. The past days I've been trying to update everything so I did it from what story hasn't been updated the latest to the earliest, and when I saw that this story was third to last I sort of slammed my head on to the laptop (well more like I slowly put it down to make sure I didn't hit the shift key then slammed it at a small distance).**

**I've also been kept up to date with which and how many stories have been published for this fandom recently and have you noticed that most of them are in Indonesian or Spanish now that the Kagerou Days hype train sort of went down?**

* * *

_It hurts..._

"WHY?! WHY?!" Takane screamed as she pounded the ground under her knees.

_Hey, Shintaro... what you're doing hurts..._

"Shintaro..." Haruka gripped his fists tightly, letting tears stream down his face.

_It's hurting everyone..._

"Onii-chan...! Onii-chan! ONII-CHAN!" Momo screamed in hysteria.

_It's hurting our dear friends..._

Mary took sips of air as she sobbed quietly alongside Seto.

_Why won't you stop?_

"Dang it...!" Kano cursed under his breath, tears falling quietly onto the floor.

_Why are you continuing?_

Kido didn't mutter anything as she cried into her hands.

_Shintaro! Stop!_

Ayano felt tears rolling down her cheeks.

* * *

"... ess... stress... mistress...! Mistress!"

Ayano suddenly woke up.

"It's time to wake up, Mistress!"

_W-Where am I...? _Ayano slowly sat up from her bed.

She slowly turned to the computer across from her room and looked at the monitor to see something- or more precisely- some_one_ roaming around in it.

"Mistress! You're awake!" the person brightens up.

"E... ne...?" Ayano rubbed her eyes to clear up her vision.

"'Ene'? Who's that?" she clearly saw that the person floating around the monitor was a boy.

"Who... are you...?" Ayano blinked, never seeing this person before.

"Eh?! How did you forget me, Mistress?!" the boy jolts, "I'm Koka!"

"Ko... ka...?" Ayano asked, astonished.

"Yeah! I'm Koka! And you're my Mistress! Remember?" Koka asks.

_Not... Ene...?! _Ayano started to sweat nervously.

"I-I don't know you though..." Ayano hesitantly said.

"Eh?! Mistress! Are you playing with me again?!" Koka looked like he was on the verge of crying.

"Ah- please don't cry... I-I'm sorry, Koka, it's just that I had this nightmare...!" Ayano panicked.

"A nightmare! That's terrible!" Koka gasped.

"Y-Yeah, but it's nothing to worry about..." Ayano hesitated again.

_What's going on!? What's happening?! Who are you?! _questions kept popping up in Ayano's head, making a blockage to what she wants to say.

"But you're all sweaty..." Koka worried.

"It's nothing...! I'm fine," Ayano forces a smile.

"..." Koka seems unconvinced, "... You sure?"

"Yes, see? It's not like I'm dying or anything like that!" Ayano nervously laughed, pretending to be familiar with him.

"Mm... fine..." Koka sighs.

"A-Anyway, what is it that you needed me awake so badly for?" Ayano asked.

"Oh! This!" his eyes lit up and suddenly a bunch of different items appeared on the screen.

"Eh?!" Ayano runs over to her computer and tries to keep up with the computer that is now lagging from too many programs opened. While running over she tripped over the chair's leg, causing her arms to fly forward and hit a cup of day-old orange juice, making the cup fall over and spill all the orange juice into the keyboard.

"AAAHHHH!" Ayano and Koka screamed as the keyboard started freaking out.

"Tissues! Tissues!" Koka yelled, pointing over to the box of tissues.

Ayano stood up, grabbed a tissue but didn't properly pull it off causing tissues to fly all over the place as she wipes the keyboard with a tissue-snake. She didn't make it in time, causing the computer to shut down with the keyboard still freaking out until a giant shock happened and smoke slowly flying out.

_Man am I glad I had took my hand off right after the computer shut down! _Ayano sweated.

"Aw! That was a good computer too!" Koka pouted as her phone turned on with him in it, "Well, guess we'll need to go out and buy a new computer!"

"I-I see..." Ayano murmured.

"It'll be good for you though since it's been two years since you went out!" he smiled.

"Eh...?" Ayano blinked a few times.

_Two years since I went out...?!_

"Mistress?"

_When was "since"?!_

"Mistress!"

_What's going on?!_

"Don't look that shocked! It's not that bad!"

_Shintaro, you..._

"Mistress?!"

_You broke the heat daze! _Ayano sweated.

"Mistress?! Are you okay?! You're making one of those anime expressions!"

"Y-Yes, I'm fine, l-let's go!" Ayano stuttered like she had for the past couple minutes. She then walks out of her room and closes the door.

. . .

"Mistress, I can't walk, you do realize that, right?"

The door opens.

"I-I knew that..." Ayano grabs her phone and repeats her actions.


	33. Chapter 33

**THIS IS IMPORTANT PLEASE READ**

**So as you guys know I haven't updated. ANYTHING.**

**I have grown extremely forgetful to the point I haven't been spoiling my lovely readers with updates and that's probably making you depressed and thinking about that- well- makes me depressed =w="**

**Dunno about you guys, but I jump from fandoms to fandoms a lot and once I get back into a fandom I tend to obsess over it a whole lot more and longer so everything's a mess.**

**This poll won't be closed until I get at least two fanfics done and over with.**

**I will check this poll weekly and whoever's voting level is higher is the one I will update (so basically weekly updates on whichever has the highest vote depending on each week) (More than once a week if I have time).**

**I know I said I would get another poll to make one of my fanfics into a comic for this year or something like that, but the fact that I haven't been spoiling my lovely readers with updates lately AND the fact that I have TONS of incomplete stories is REALLY getting on my nerves, so I'm going to have to break that promise on having a comic each year.**

**You're probably like, "Woah, why do we get to choose at the most five?" ... you do know how many Super Smash Bros fanfics I have, right? =w= "**

**As usual, if you have any questions leave it as a review or PM me.**

**Thank you for reading and lets get this chapter going.**

* * *

"Hot..." Ayano murmured.

"That's because you're wearing a scarf in the middle of summer!"

"I don't know if your scolding me or stating something," Ayano sighed.

Once she reached the mall she basically window shopped at first.

"Anything you see good, Koka?" Ayano asked.

"Nothing so far... Mistress! Person!" Koka suddenly shouted.

"Hu-?!"

Before Ayano could even say 'huh' she bumped into said person and fell backwards onto her butt (bosom, behind, etc.). _If I'm right, Shintaro bumped into Kido while walking in the mall, so if I'm-_

"Sor- Ayano-nee?!"

"Eh...?" Ayano blinked at the familiar, not-Kido's voice, "Ka...no...?!"

"Ayano-nee, when did you get out of the house?!" Kano asked, looking equally surprised, "And what are you doing here?!"

"Um, I-I accidentally poured day-old orange juice into my keyboard and it short-circuited, along with the computer," Ayano said, letting Kano help her up and dust her skirt.

"Anyways, you should go home!" Kano turned his sister-in-law around and started pushing her in the direction of where the entrance/exit was.

"K-Kano! I just said I need to get a new computer!" Ayano stopped.

"Then I'll buy it for you!" Kano protested.

"You don't know the first thing to computers though," Ayano deadpanned.

"I-I do!... Kinda..."

"And shouldn't I be asking why you're here?"

"Well- uh-"

"I thought so. Always weak to your older sister," she playfully poked Kano on the nose and walked off to the technology department.

"Was it okay to walk off like that?" Koka asked, "I mean, Kano seemed like he was trying to warn you about something."

"I'm sure it's fine. I mean, he can be quite the worrywart sometimes," Ayano smiled reassuringly.

"Okay, if you say so, Mistress," Koka said.

And then smoke and panic appeared in the happy-go-lucky atmosphere, then realization hit Ayano extremely hard. Yes, you can go ahead and take it literally because it hit her that hard.

_Kano... was warning me... about the terrorists... weelll crap. (_Because if you guys read the manga or watched the anime, Kano was already onto something before the Dan reached the mall, remember?)

"Mistress, what's happening? Mistress?!"

"I really should have listened to Kano..." Ayano's expression darkened.

So after going through what Shintaro went through in the other heat haze dazes [a.k.a. terrorists coming in, panicking, getting tied up, panicking, being thrown to the ground with everyone else, panicking, the demand of money, panicking, the threat of blowing up the place, panicking, the people outside not doing a d*** thing to help the people that are trapped, panicking, regretting their decisions up until this very point, and more panicking] Ayano now pitied Shintaro because he had to go through all this bullcrap more than once.

_No wonder he's so grumpy all the time! _Ayano sweated.

"Mistress, what should we do?!" Koka panicked in her ear bud.

"Don't worry Koka, everything will be fine... I think..." Ayano whispered, only loud enough for Koka to hear.

"That's not reassuring, Mistress!"

"Ayano-nee?!"

"K-Kido?!"


	34. Chapter 34

"So Kano wasn't lying that you were here?!" Kido asked, shocked.

"Kido, what are you doing here?!" Ayano asked back.

"Someone accidentally ran into me and that made my hidden ability faze and I got captured, but right now I should be unable to untie you," Kido said as her eyes turned red.

"What should we do about the others? Your power won't reach them!" Ayano rubbed her wrists once Kido got off the cuffs.

"I'm sure the Dan will figure something out soon," Kido said as Ayano helped get her cuffs off.

The two then heard a vibration come from Kido's pocket.

Kido then took out her phone, "Kano?"

Hearing his name made Ayano peak over Kido's shoulder and the two couldn't help but sweat. Kano sent Kido- well- basically a silly selfie with the two in the background along with all the other captured people.

"I swear, if he posts this online...!" Kido's expression darkened.

"K-Kido, calm down, he might be silly at times but I don't think he's that..." Ayano murmured on, trying to find non-offensive words to describe those certain actions.

"Dumb?" Kido scoffed.

"Uh..." Ayano awkwardly laughs.

"Thought you could get away, huh?!" a terrorist threw down a captured person [again] who just so happened to bump into Ayano, causing the hidden ability to faze, revealing her without the cuffs.

"You too brat?!" Ayano began to sweat nervously as he reaches out and grabs her by her scarf and lifts her up in the air with it.

"Mistress?! Mistress! Who's that?!" she could hear Koka begin to panic.

"What does a little girl think you're doing here? All by yourself? Shouldn't weak girls like you be sitting at home for your man?!" the terrorist smirked.

So the thing was, it irked Ayano that he made fun of Shintaro being a virgin NEET and she was stuck watching the jerk mock him, and now, it irks her even more that it turned out the terrorist was sexist too.

Ayano murmured something.

"Huh? What's that?" the terrorist asked.

"I said... SEXIST JERKS WHO MAKE FUN OF VIRGIN NEETS AND GIRLS SHOULD GO F*** OFF FOR ALL I CARE!" Ayano yelled at the top of her lungs then kicked the terrorist in the area between the legs, making him scream in pain and letting Ayano wriggle out of her scarf.

When she saw that everything around the area was tumbling down and hitting the terrorists Ayano took that as her cue to run to the main computer system and grabbing a cable on the way.

"I'm leaving this to you, Koka!" Ayano plugged the cable to the computer system.

"Alright! Leave it to me!" Koka exclaimed confidently as he appeared on all of the monitors.

Before everything went black she heard a gun shot

* * *

Ayano woke up to see Mary's worried face.

"Mary...?" Ayano slowly got up.

"Thank goodness you're okay!" Mary sighed in relief, "I'll go tell the Dan you're okay. I'll be back soon." the petite girl said, then walked out of the room.

"...istress?! Mistress!" she soon realized that her phone was right beside her.

"Koka, are you okay?" Ayano asked as she picked up the phone.

"Of course I'm fine! But what about you?" Koka asked.

"What about me?" Ayano repeated the question.

"Yeah! That bullet barely missed your head, you know!" Koka said.

"Oh..." she sighed, tired from experiencing the crazy event.

"I didn't expect you to cuss either!"

"W-Well what I exclaimed was s-sorta on the whim..." Ayano sweated a bit.

"I see..." Koka said.

_Koka was able to do what Ene did... now that I think about it... _" Say, who are you, Koka?"

"Who am I?" Koka repeated the question like Ayano.

"Ayano-nee!" Seto suddenly slammed the door open, "Thank goodness you're okay!"

"So I've heard from Mary," Ayano sighed but managed a smile.

"Man, that really scared me when you were captured," Kano sighed in relief.

"Ayano, you need to be more careful!" Momo scolded.

"What's this?" Hiyori picked up Ayano's phone.

"Hiyori?!" Ayano jolted at her sudden appearance.

"Yeah, I sort of ran into her while running away from a rabid group of fans," Momo awkwardly giggled, but was soon paying attention to what Hiyori said before, "But yeah, what is that?"

"Nice to meet you! I'm Koka!" Koka waved 'hello'.

"Koka? How come I've never heard of him before?" Seto asked.

_You're asking me! _Ayano couldn't help but avert her gaze and cringe a bit.

"Eh?! Mistress, you're so mean! You've never told them about me?!" Koka started to cry comically.

"'Mistress'? Eh, I never knew Ayano-nee was into that sort of stu-" Kano was then elbowed in the gut by Kido.

"Hey Koka, want to join the Dan?" Hiyori asked excitedly.

"It's fun to be part of the Mekakushi Dan, Koka!" Mary said, "We go on stuff like missions!"

"That does sound fun..." Koka said with a finger on his cheek in thought, then smiled, "Can I?"

"I don't see a problem with it," Kido smiled a small smile.

"Let's see... 0 is Ayano-nee, 1 is Kido, 2 is me, Seto, 3 is Kano, 4 is Mary, 5 is Momo, 6 is Takane, although we haven't seen her in a while, 7 is Shin-" Seto immediately clamped his mouth shut.

A suffocating silence soon came right after Seto had cut his sentence off.

"A-Anyway, 8 is me, Hiyori, a-and 9 is Haruka, but we haven't seen him in a while either," Hiyori nervously tried to make the silence less suffocating.

"Then since you haven't seen 6 and 9 in a while can I be one of those two?" Koka asked.

The Dan all shared looks with each other and soon afterwards either sighed, meaning 'go ahead', or nodded.

"Then I hope you welcome me as member 9 of the Mekakushi Dan!" Koka exclaimed with a smile, instantly brightening up the mood.


	35. Chapter 35

**So this fanfic will be ending soon (probably one more chapter)... and then I have to go back and do some grammar check on all 35 chapters before posting the final chapter... hooray... =w="**

* * *

"What should we go on first?" Koka asked excitedly.

"Would it really matter for you?" Ayano asked.

"Yes!" Koka yelled.

"How about the roller coaster?" Mary pointed to a roller coaster that zoomed right past their sight.

"E-Eh? A-Are you sure, Mary?" Kido asked nervously.

"Pfft! Don't tell me our brave leader is afraid of roller coasters!" Kano held back from bursting out into laughter.

"Sh-Shut up!" Kido yelled.

_Seeing how Shintaro dealt with it I don't think I want to go on it either! _Ayano started to sweat nervously.

"I think it'll be fun, right Hiyori?" Momo turned to her.

"M-hm!" Hiyori nodded excitedly.

"W-Why not give it a try...!" Ayano forced a smile.

* * *

~After 10 minutes of screaming~

"There, there..." Kano patted Ayano's back comfortingly as it looked like she was about to throw up all of her stomach's content.

"I'm sorry we forced you onto the ride, I didn't know you have a weak stomach," Mary said.

"I-It's... fine..." Ayano gulped.

"What should we do next?" Hiyori asked.

"How about the haunted house?" Momo asked.

"Eh?!" Kido jolted.

"Something wrong, danchou?" Momo turned to her.

"N-Nothing...!" Kido quickly murmured.

"Then off to the haunted house!" Momo shouted excitedly.

"Yeah!" Hiyori shouted too, then the two proceeded to drag Kido with Mary following in the direction of the haunted house.

"No- wait- guys-!"

"Where are the others taking Kido?" Seto returned with water bottles to see the dragging just in time.

"Haunted house," Kano grinned.

"Oh... doesn't Kido hate those sort of things though?" Seto asked while handing out the water bottles to Ayano and Kano.

"Pfft! More like scared!" Kano said before taking a sip of water.

"I...I think I'm going to go and take a walk... or just go in general..." Ayano murmured sickly as she walked off.

"Okay," Seto said, a bit worried that she might actually puke, but he trusted that she would be fine... sort of.

So after mindlessly walking around the area for a couple of minutes Ayano saw a familiar- as Kano says it- 'ball of fluff'.

"Mary? What are you doing by yourself?" Ayano asked.

"Oh, I came out of the haunted house earlier than the other three so I decided to go to the other attractions by myself until they come out," Mary said, showing a brochure that had red circles around specific attractions.

Mary then lit up in realization, "Ayano, how about we go to them together?"

"Sure thing," Ayano smiled.

As you guys probably know already, they went to an ice maze and as they just entered Ayano noticed Mary shivering.

"Are you okay?" Ayano's big sister instincts kicked in.

"Y-Y-Y-Yeah...! L-Luckily I br-brought some hot-t t-tea!" Mary said through chattering teeth.

_Wait... _realization soon dawned on Ayano yet again that day as Mary opened the can, _Didn't Shintaro-?_

"WAH!" Mary then tripped and spilled the hot tea all over Ayano.

Ayano groaned as she waited for her clothes to dry after coming out of the ice maze.

"AYANO-NEE!" Kido basically screamed.

"Welp! Here we go again...!" Ayano groaned again.

* * *

"Aah, that was fun!"

"We should go there again!"

"We could go on the roller coaster again if we come back here!"

"You still scared, Ki-OW!"

"Hey, Koka, I've been meaning to ask you for a while, but who are you?" Ayano asked as she was a few inches behind the Dan.

Koka looked up to his 'Mistress', and smiled, "Can't tell you!"

"Eh? Not even a hint?" Ayano asked.

"Weelll, I guess I could," Koka then thought for a moment, "I call you 'Mistress' because I thought the bet my friend made was sort of cool!"

"A bet...!" she widened her eyes in realization, "No way...! You're-!"

"Ayano-nee! Hurry up before we leave you behind!" Kano called from up ahead.

"Come on!" Mary grabbed Ayano by the wrist and lightly pulled her forward into the group and somewhere by Momo.

"Momo, are you okay? You've been anxiously looking across the street for some time," Hiyori asked.

"I-Is it me or has that person been staring at us for a while...?" Momo nervously asked.

_Eh...? _Ayano began to sweat nervously when she heard that, _H-How is that possible?! He's right he- wait...!_

"That's impossible, right now we're hidden by my eye power," Kido simply stated.

"But she's walking over to us..." Momo said, and as true as she said, the person- or more specifically, _girl_\- started walking in the direction of where the Dan was.

_No, why didn't I realize this before?! Koka was there instead of Ene, I bumped into Kano instead of Kido, Kido was the one who helped me escape instead of Kano, Momo ran into Hiyori instead of Hibiya, and overall I'm going through this again instead of Shintaro! Which means-_

Her train of thought was immediately paused when she heard a gun shot and Kano falling to the floor as everyone screamed.

_The route hasn't changed at all! Only the roles!_

Before Ayano even realized it she lost her siblings-in-law and she had started moving on her own to protect Momo, only to have Koka taken away and crushed by the girl in front of her.

"Guess you failed~!" the girl sickeningly giggled as she pointed the gun at Ayano's forehead.

"Why... Ene...!"

* * *

Her hand twitched as she awoke in a familiar classroom.

"Where..." Ayano murmured as she sat up and looked around to see vases filled with flowers on all of the other desks except for her's and his.

She heard a familiar sigh of disappointment come as the curtains swayed from the wind.

"I'm back here yet again, huh, Shintaro?"


	36. Chapter 36

**First off, thank you for reading this story until the end! (You do not know how accomplished I feel after ssooo many writer's blocks in this story =w=")**

**Secondly, this story will be taken off of the poll for finishing my stories since this is now finished.**

**And third, how should I inform you guys about when/if I'm going to make another poll to turn my fanfics into comics?**

**Now, let's finish this story :3**

* * *

"Yep, until this whole mess is fixed-"

"EH?!" Ayano jolted.

"Well what else do you expect?" Shintaro sighed as he placed his legs onto his desk.

"B-But, y-your plan-"

"That you guys totally f-ed up," Shintaro said in a matter-in-fact voice.

"Er-"

"Seriously? Ever heard of stuffing the paper into a tighter spot like- oh I don't know- your _sleeves_ rather than your scarf that could easily be blown off by the wind?!" he massages his temples.

"I'm sorry..." Ayano meekly said.

"And at least I don't use the f word-"

"I did it on accident!"

Shintaro sighs as Ayano fidgeted with the rim of her skirt in silence.

"... A bet."

Ayano looked up and over to Shintaro, who was now sitting properly, "What?"

"I made a bet with the freaking snake," he slumped in a tired manner a second after sitting properly, "Said that if I solved the problem in two routes that he had to leave us alone."

"Then what about your plan? I thought you said the plan couldn't reach him," Ayano said.

"Exactly. I told him nothing about my plan, but I knew that being the sneaky little troll he is he would sneak back into Haruka's body to figure out my plan so he could continue our torture," Shintaro said, "Luckily, Takane rubbed a bit of her stubborn-ness onto Haruka so he had a good control on making sure Kuroha didn't completely take over his body."

"So I messed up everything because of that little paper mess up, huh?" Ayano asked guiltily.

"Yeah pretty much."

"So blunt..." she sweated.

"I was really hoping for you guys not to mess up," Shintaro admitted truthfully, "Guess I should have planned out more."

"That's not true! You did your best to try to save everyone!" Ayano said.

"Yeah."

The two stayed in silence, then Shintaro sighed the umpteenth time.

"I'm surprised you haven't asked about how your memories were still intact even when you got out of this dimension."

"Huh? Now that I think about it, yeah..."

"Part of the bet. He at most allowed two things to happen without him butting in, and those two things were letting your and Hibiya's memories stay, and in Hibiya's case, his powers too," Shintaro explained.

"I feel like I'm the rhetorical character and you're the mysterious person now."

"Mall?"

"Yep." Ayano cringed.

"I guess just Hibiya knowing about my plan wasn't enough to stop that snake from ruining my plans," he sat up straight, "Speaking of Hibiya, I need to go find him before I leave this dimension."

"So what _would_ have happened if the plan was a success and your plan didn't reach Haruka?" Ayano asked.

"Dunno."

"Seriously?!"

"... Maybe I would have died permanently... I..." Shintaro paused to think about how to word what he was about to say more properly to his liking, "I just thought that you would have done a better job at saving everyone than me if we switched roles..."

_Eh...? _Ayano blinked, _Did all of those time loops of him failing to save everyone...?_

"Who knew that the only thing that would change were the character roles. I just made you guys sad, huh?" Shintaro asked.

"That's not..."

Shintaro turned to Ayano.

"That's not true."

He raised a brow at her sentence.

"Shintaro, you're not worthless."

Surprise was visible on his face now.

"You're not better off dead either. Just because you can't stop heat haze days doesn't necessarily mean you're worthless, also..." Ayano managed a smile, "They are sad because they miss you."

Shock was the only thing that showed on Shintaro's face, but the corners of his lips tilted up a bit and a chuckle escaped his throat, "Can't you tell the difference between past and present tense?"

"Guess not," Ayano giggled.

"Well, I'm probably going to end up here again because Ene died and I did suicide again," he deadpanned.

"Eh?!" Ayano jolted again.

"It's pretty obvious that these two routes messed up the entire concept of Kagerou Days just by role changes, so the last few routes will be messed with," he got up from his seat, "Maybe I'll name the next route XX Route because of how 'special' it is."

"Uh- Shintaro- you're making no sense here!" Ayano sweated.

"As in..." he walks over and pats Ayano on the head and ruffles her hair a bit as he smirked, "The climax to _our_ happy ending is about to happen."

For a second, Ayano thought she saw a red glow come from Shintaro's eyes before he turned around and walked to the door.

"Shintaro... your eyes-!"

"That was only a sec. I need to come back here to fully obtain it since I still need a second person to die with me, right?" he asked without turning around, "And the only way I'll remember? Nothing. It will probably be purely out of depression after I accidentally 'delete' Ene, but that's purely a hypothesis."

"But the snake-!"

"Don't care anymore."

This time it was Ayano's turn to look shocked as he slammed the door opened.

"I'll make sure to succeed in the last few routes so everyone is safe, and that snake won't stop me." Shintaro stated with confidence before he slammed the door shut behind him.

Ayano was frozen for a minute before she eased into a smile.

"Thank you."


End file.
